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Home My WebLink About2020-12-09 Planning & transportation commission Summary MinutesPage 1 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Planning & Transportation Commission 1 Draft Minutes: December 9, 2020 2 Virtual Meeting 3 6:00 PM 4 5 6 Call to Order / Roll Call 7 Approximately 6:05 pm 8 Mr. Vinh Nguyen, Admin Associate III: Ok, I’ll begin the roll call. Commissioner Alcheck? 9 10 Commissioner Alcheck: Present. 11 12 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Hechtman? 13 14 Commissioner Hechtman: Present. 15 16 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Lauing? 17 18 Commissioner Lauing: Present. 19 20 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Riggs? 21 22 Commissioner Riggs: Present. 23 24 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Roohparvar? 25 26 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Present. 27 28 Mr. Nguyen: I mean Vice-Chair Roohparvar. 29 30 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Present. 31 32 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Summa? 33 34 Commissioner Summa: Present. 35 36 Mr. Nguyen: Chair Templeton? 37 38 Page 2 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Templeton: Present. 1 2 Mr. Nguyen: Ok, we have a quorum. Thank you. 3 4 Chair Templeton: Great, thank you very much. I see some hands raised and the first thing we’re 5 going to take raised hands for is items not on the agenda. So, if you wish to speak to the item 6 that is on the agenda, you may want to lower your hand until after that item. 7 Oral Communications 8 The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker.1,2 9 Chair Templeton: So, first thing we’ll do is Oral Communications and this is for members of the 10 public who wish to speak on items, not on the agenda. Please raise your hands now. Mr. 11 Nguyen? 12 13 Mr. Vinh Nguyen, Admin Associate III: Ok, it looks like we have just one raised hand from 14 Rebecca so our first speaker will be Rebecca. 15 16 Ms. Rebecca Eisenberg: Hi, thank you so much. This is Rebecca Eisenberg. I appreciate you 17 allowing me to speak and as always, I’m grateful for your hard work on behalf of the City. 18 19 I’m speaking still about Castilleja, which is not on the agenda, which remains a problematic 20 issue. First of all, I had sent an email that I didn’t receive a response regarding potential 21 conflicts of interest by Commissioner Alcheck. In that letter… well, among the fact that I listed 22 many, many statutory issues and failures to enforce on behalf of the City, including the Planning 23 Commission. I also noted that there is evidence out there that is pretty strong that Mr. 24 Alcheck’s sister attended Castilleja. That his sister and his parents are significant donors to 25 Castilleja. That his nieces or niece attend Castilleja and that he is intending to, if possible given 26 the very, very competitive admissions rate, he hopes to send his own daughters to Castilleja. 27 When I sent that there is no response. It couldn’t have been that because you don’t value me as 28 a community member and it couldn’t have been that you didn’t read it. So, was it because 29 these are true? I just know what I heard and what I saw on the internet. If that’s the case. I 30 think that those types of relationships with Castilleja are at least require disclosure on behalf of 31 Mr. Alcheck. Whether or not he should recuse himself is of course dependent on what conflicts 32 there are, but it’s strange. If it’s… if these relationships don’t pose a conflict that requires 33 recusal, why not just let the world know, and that way you can create the appearance of 34 integrity that we’re all hoping that… on behalf of the appointed and elected leaders like you all. 35 36 Second, I just want to clarify that I think Castilleja is a great school, but there are fundamental 37 reasons why we need to enforce our laws here. And the laws make it very clear that we can’t… 38 the City cannot grant a Conditional Use Permit if there’s not a public benefit. Not a benefit to 39 Castilleja or its family base or leaders which who are undoubtedly great people, but a benefit to 40 Page 3 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. the City of Palo Alto. And none have even been proposed and because when we give Castilleja 1 all these benefits, we actually divert money from our public-school students. I detailed those in 2 my letters. I’m out of time so I urge you to read them. Thank you. 3 4 Mr. Nguyen: Thank you for joining us tonight and Chair Templeton, that concludes Oral 5 Communications. 6 7 Chair Templeton: Thank you very much. 8 9 Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions 10 The Chair or Commission majority may modify the agenda order to improve meeting management. 11 Chair Templeton: Alright, any Agenda Changes, Additions, or Deletions? 12 13 Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: I do not have any requests for changes or deletions. 14 City Official Reports 15 1. Directors Report, Meeting Schedule and Assignments 16 Chair Templeton: How about we move onto City Official Reports? 17 18 Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: Thank you, Chair Templeton, Vice-Chair Roohparvar, 19 and Members of the Planning Commission. It’s good to be with you this evening. This is our last 20 meeting for 2020 if you can believe it. So, I think we are all very hopeful about the news that 21 the vaccine is coming and looking forward to 2021. My public service announcement and I’m 22 sure all of you have read and members of the public that even with the onset and coming of the 23 vaccine. It will be some time before that is distributed significantly and so we’re still right now 24 in a Shelter in Place mode. Really pretty much back to where we were in March of this year 25 unfortunately with some exceptions. Of course, essential services are continuing, construction 26 activities are continuing, retail is available in addition to essential retail at grocery stores and 27 pharmacies and things like that, and some outdoor activities are encouraged or are able to 28 continue. 29 30 You may have noticed that sadly we had to discontinue outdoor dining as well and so the Uplift 31 Local Streets of University Avenue and California Avenue have been opened again to vehicle 32 traffic. We are watching closely, always, what the Public Health Officials say and when they will 33 lift those restrictions. We’re hopeful that it will be soon, but realistically we’re in this for I 34 believe at least 3-weeks or at least through January 4th. There’s a Shelter in Place Order right 35 now and we’ll look to see if our capacity at our ICU beds in our hospitals is able to become 36 greater so that those could be lifted. So, that’s at least one indicator and as many know the 37 indicator that precipitated this most recent Shelter in Place. So, I just encourage everyone to be 38 safe during the holidays and if to the degree that you’re able to shop locally at local small 39 Page 4 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. businesses that again, are still open at I believe 25 percent capacity. So, you’ll have to wait in 1 line a little bit to get inside. Many of our retailers are offering online options or you may choose 2 to give a gift card to a local restaurant. Those are some great ways that you can support a local 3 retailer and give a gift to those who you are planning to give gifts to this year. If that’s what is 4 part of your tradition so, I just want to encourage folks to think about that. 5 6 One of my jobs and roles with the City has been to be part of the group that is looking to think 7 about our retailers and how do we recover from the pandemic and the stories that we hare are 8 just really, really hard to hear. They’re very real in terms of the dire straights that not only the 9 owners of the businesses are but they are always very first and for most to talk about their 10 employees and the folks who work there who are really impacted by not having a paycheck, not 11 having hours to work. So, we’re definitely thinking about all of them this time of year. So, that’s 12 my little announcement regarding that. 13 14 On some positive news for the department, we continue to make headway in terms of filling 15 some of our vacancies. So, we hope that in January we’ll have a new Principle Planner on board 16 so know on wood we are able to hire that person and move forward. And we continue to 17 monitor construction and development activity. Overall, we’re still down this year from last 18 year’s development activity in terms of the number of planning applications and building 19 permit applications that we’re receiving. It’s not too far off month over month when you look. 20 It’s like maybe 20 or 30 permits less per month but really, we never really made up for that big 21 downturn we had for the first few months of the Shelter in Place where things ground to a halt. 22 And certainly, I think we see that people change their plans, put plans on hold that they may 23 have had to do development or construction work and so we are watching that closely. 24 25 And then this last Monday and the Monday prior, City Council did have two discussions about 26 the Economic Recovery. Last weeks was a great panel discussion about the Economic Recovery 27 and I think worthwhile to even watch the opening study session where three experts talked 28 about different aspects of the recovery. And that is some topic we hope to bring to the PTC 29 early next year as well in terms of particularly what the remote work scenario might look like, 30 where will people be traveling, how will they be getting to work, how many people will be 31 coming to work? So, something that we’re monitoring closely and some of the conversations 32 we’ve had just in the course of business with developers. We always ask hey, what does your 33 crystal ball show? What are your tenants saying? What do you see on the horizon and all 34 indications so far that folks are interested in coming back physically to work? Especially 35 companies that require collaboration, that need meeting space for group gatherings for 36 discussions, and so though there may be some type of hybrid in terms of employees working 37 from home and working in the office. It certainly is not indicated that we’ll see most people 38 working from home 100 percent of the time. So, I think that’s good news for our City and good 39 Page 5 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. news I think for a lot of us who want to get back to the office and working together with our 1 colleagues in person. 2 3 We do… are very, very fortunate that we have Sylvia Star-Lack from our Office of 4 Transportation here with us as well and Sylvia, I just want to make space if there’s anything 5 you’d like to update from the Office of Transportation for the Planning Commissioners to 6 know? Ok, it’s a slow time of year for everyone I think a little bit right now, but we do have I 7 believe a study session item coming from Office of Transportation early next year in January to 8 us so we look forward to that. Thank you for being here Sylvia, appreciate it. So (interrupted) 9 10 Chair Templeton: Very much, thank you both. 11 12 Ms. Tanner: That’s my report and I’m happy to answer any questions if there are any. 13 14 Chair Templeton: Great. It looks like Commissioner Riggs has his hand up. 15 16 Commissioner Riggs: Yeah, I do, sorry. So, two questions Rachael, first is there… on the 17 economic development front, is there any… are there any Staff related efforts to propose to 18 Council small business relief grants or permit waivers for TIs? Particularly TI’s that deal… that 19 have dealt with COVID? It seems like that’s becoming a trend for a lot of California… particularly 20 California Cities that are our size and particularly for downtown oriented businesses. So, that’s 21 question one, and then question two was is kind of a… it could be a Sylvia question as well. I 22 wanted to see if there’s any dialog about Council’s decision on the 788 San Antonio project and 23 where that… where and when that corridor study might happen? 24 25 Ms. Tanner: Great questions Commissioner Riggs. Regarding relief efforts, there is… there has 26 been and continues to be a small business grant program. There was a first-round earlier this 27 year, there’s a second round of $5,000 grants that are being… I think that have been in terms of 28 solicited folks who want to get the grant and they’re being distributed. It’s obviously a pretty 29 small amount of money and a small number unfortunately of businesses that are able to be 30 serviced. There’s potential for that to continue again next year and as far as other relief effort. 31 Council… we did take to Council some ideas for ideas such as some zoning base reliefs. Could 32 we look at our zoning in terms of making it easier for new businesses to open? There has been 33 a fee waiver for example for outdoor dining. The fees were waived for those reviews and so it’s 34 conceivable that Council could consider those types of waivers more on the larger fee waiver. 35 That’s something certainly Staff can propose. 36 37 We will be coming back to the PTC with some ideas of other ways through at least the Zoning 38 Code, which obviously is again more focused on folks wanting to open a business or reopen or 39 Page 6 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. modify than it is on our existing businesses, unfortunately; but that’s one tool that we have and 1 we’ll be bringing that to PTC for consideration some potential changes that we could make. 2 3 And Sylvia, did you want to address the other question? For San Antonio overall the Council did 4 approve the project and I think with good discussion regarding the need for more planning. And 5 I know Sylvia, I believe you have had or are having some bike and pedestrian planning in that 6 area as well. Is that correct on the San Antonio, or you have had it in the past, or it’s part of the 7 coming bike plan? I know I’m forgetting what planning efforts are underway. 8 9 Ms. Sylvia Star-Lack: For sure we will talk about that as part of the upcoming Bike Plan. We are 10 still talking internally with planning. We need to coordinate on what the parameters are going 11 to be of that San Antonio corridor and so those… that coordination needs to happen before it 12 can come back to Council with the broad outlines of what that plan will look like. 13 14 Chair Templeton: Alright, thank you. Thank you all. I had a quick question. What is happening to 15 the parklets now that the streets are back open? Do they have to be removed or can they stay 16 put? 17 18 Ms. Tanner: So, the parklets that are taking up a parking space, so not… we had where of 19 course where folks were able to dine in the roadway, kind of in the center of the street, and 20 streets were closed. But the parklets that are in parking spaces are going to be remaining. 21 Council did authorize those to remain through September of next year through Labor Day. 22 Again, thinking that hopefully, we’ll be out of the pandemic by then but also wanting to 23 encourage folks to make the investment to construct a more attractive and certainly accessible 24 parklet. And so that happened and those are in place until next September. We do need to 25 work on as Staff on a transition plan and bring to Council and also to PTC for consideration what 26 a permanent parklet program might look like. And then hopefully we can do that so those 27 parklets could transition for those who want to, to a permanent program if that’s what Council 28 approves. 29 30 Chair Templeton: Cool, thank you for the update. Alright, so any other Commissioners have 31 questions before we move on to our agenda item? Alright, also members of the public if you do 32 raise your hand, we’ll be creating a stack of… an order of comments so you’re welcome to raise 33 your hands if you want to speak on the agenda item. 34 35 Action Items 36 Public Comment is Permitted. Applicants/Appellant Teams: Fifteen (15) minutes, plus three (3) minutes rebuttal. 37 All others: Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 38 39 2. PUBLIC HEARING: Recommendation on the Preferred Plan Alternative for the North 40 Ventura Coordinated Area Plan 41 Page 7 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Templeton: We’re moving to the public hearing on the Preferred Plan Alternative 2 recommendation for the North Ventura Coordinated Area Plan. So, over to you, Staff. 3 4 Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: Thank you and Commissioners, I will be sharing my 5 screen and why did it go… is that showing the first slide? North Ventura Coordinated Area Plan 6 to everyone? Excellent. 7 8 Good evening, I have the pleasure of presenting the North Ventura Coordinated Area Plan, the 9 draft alternatives to the Planning and Transportation Commission this evening. I’m joined by 10 Jean Eisberg. She is the owner and operator of Lexington Planning. She’s a consultant that we 11 have fortunately due to a vacancy been able to use her services on this project and she has 12 been working on other projects. She was before us earlier this year with the objective standards 13 work and so you’ll recognize her from that. We also have Chitra Moitra with us. Unfortunately, 14 Claire Campbell, our Manager of Long-Range Planning, has had a family emergency and she is 15 not able to join us this evening, but she has worked very diligently on this project and so we will 16 certainly be missing her this evening. 17 18 So, the purpose of this meeting is to present and review the three draft alternatives that have 19 been prepared for the North Ventura Coordinated Area Plan, to take public comment, to have 20 PTC ask questions, to have a discussion amongst the members, and we request that the hearing 21 be continued to January 13th, 2021. This is both to give time for more discussion, more thought 22 for PTC Members, and additionally, we had planned to adjourn earlier because of the City 23 Council doing interviews with PTC Members. Even though that is no longer happening, we did 24 notice the public in the agenda and in the Staff report that we would be continuing and we 25 would request that the PTC follow that stated and published order. So, that members of the 26 public who were relying on that can participate today and tune in in January. We do hope that 27 when we come back in January at our first meeting the PTC will recommend a preferred 28 alternative for City Council consideration. Our presentation this evening will go we’ll have an 29 overview of the NVCAP, our process, we’ll preview the alternatives, also the Matadero Creek 30 improvements and talk about next steps. 31 32 So, some of the context overall for this project that has changed I would say in some ways 33 significantly since the project was first conceived and the grant was applied for in 2017 are the 34 COVID-19 Pandemic and the resulting remote work, the Housing Element and RHNA that is 35 coming in the six cycle and proposed projects in the Plan Area. So, no one could have foreseen 36 in 2017 that we would have a pandemic that would lead to many, many workers in Palo Alto no 37 longer coming here daily to students at Stanford not coming on campus. And so, while this has 38 certainly put a halt for many projects and plans and led many to question will we have office… 39 need of office spaces? What will housing look like? What kind of housing will folks want? We do 40 Page 8 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. believe that in the long run that the Silicon Valley, Palo Alto, the Bay Area will become… will 1 continue to be a job center and will continue to be a place that people want to live and make 2 their homes in. And so, this is a long-range plan that will certainly last beyond the pandemic 3 and the pandemic will certainly color the early years of this plan’s life. We do think it is 4 worthwhile to continue pursuing this planning effort. 5 6 The Housing Element and RHNA, while we knew in 2017 we would need to do a Housing 7 Element in the six cycle around this time. We did not foresee that our RHNA Allocation would 8 be nearly 10,000-housing units. If that allocation stands at about that number, or even a few 9 thousand less. It is orders of magnitude greater than the 19… 1,988-units that we had assigned 10 as our fifth cycle RHNA. And so how that affects the project is that we will be coming to PTC, 11 work with then the community in the next 18-months to develop our new Housing Element 12 update. And in that Housing Element, we will need to identify opportunity sites that could 13 accommodate these 10,000-units. Presently, there are a number of housing opportunity sites 14 within the NVCAP and so depending on how the rezoning happens as part of the NVCAP. Those 15 sites could continue to be Housing Element sites if they are upzoned significantly in accordance 16 with state laws, or they may cease to be housing opportunity sites which means we have to find 17 those sites else were in the City. This is certainly not to indicate that the NVCAP should take on 18 all of or even a significant portion of that 10,000 housing units, but it is to keep in mind that 19 what is changed here through zoning and through the plan will have an impact on our Housing 20 Element and on our ability to identify those housing opportunity sites. 21 22 And lastly and perhaps most recently, we have received several project proposals within the 23 NVCAP area. There currently is no moratorium on development in the area and under state law, 24 we cannot have a moratorium that ceases housing development. The City could enact a 25 moratorium on commercial development, but housing applications would still need to be 26 received. The City has prescreened a Planned Home Zone on Olive and Pepper Avenue facing El 27 Camino Real which was a few… maybe a few weeks ago at City Council and then we also have 28 received an SB330 application for a project whose address is 200 Portage. That is a portion of 29 what is colloquially known as the Fry’s site which is 340 Portage which is proposed to have 85 30 townhomes. And for some, this project and proposal can seem to throw a wrench in the plans 31 in that it is a housing proposal for one of the larger opportunity sites within in the NVCAP area. 32 It does provide housing. It does provide and take some of the ques from the plan so far in terms 33 of the mobility and the circulation pattern. It is not as much housing as some of the alternatives 34 envision for this site. It is not as much open space as some of the alternatives envision for the 35 site but the City will be processing that application and again, it could go forward and certainly 36 change some of the calculations if it comes to fruition on what can happen now on the Fry’s 37 site. But all of that withstanding, certainly, we’re riding the waves of change and we are kind of 38 forge ahead with our planning, but I think these are important factors for the PTC certainly to 39 consider as you’re evaluating what you feel is the best and preferred alternative. 40 Page 9 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 So, a project overview, this is the site. This is Coordinated Area Plan Area is foundered roughly 2 by Page Mill and El Camino Real with the Caltrain tracks and then Lambert Avenue. So, on the 3 other side of the plan area is Boulware Park and including the newly expanded portion so you 4 won’t see that park pictured in the Plan Area but it is immediately adjacent there. It’s close to 5 the Cal Ave Business District, it’s also very close to the Cal Ave Train Station which is a great 6 asset. This project was granted funded by a grant from Caltrans and the City Council adopted 7 goals, the City Council adopted objectives for this plan, and then appointed a 14 member 8 Working Group with folks from a variety of roles who are serving as really our brain trust to try 9 to come up with what is best for this Plan Area. 10 11 This is a snapshot of kind of the most recent parts of the plan. So, what we’ve been doing this 12 year in 2020, we’ve had a workshop earlier this year, we had a community survey that was 13 online for folks who couldn’t attend the workshop, we had a PTC study session in April to orient 14 the PTC Members so hopefully, you remember some of that. That can aid you today in 15 evaluating these alternatives and we had a number of Working Group meetings over the spring 16 and summer and fall really to work to understand other points of consensus that the Working 17 Group members have that they’d like to see reflected in the alternatives. So, we’ve developed 18 with that in mind the prefer… the draft alternative before you. We’re looking for a PTC 19 recommendation and again hoping that comes in earlier 2021. We would then present that to 20 the City Council we’re hopping around March of 2021 and based on what the City Council 21 chooses as the preferred alternative and gives Staff direction. We would then pursue technical 22 studies such as traffic studies, further economic feasibility studies, to really understand that 23 alternative and provide suggestions for how it might be refined. We’d then bring that forward 24 to the City Council for consideration and their final blessing before we go off and really draft 25 the plan, do the environmental study, and then have Council to adopt the plan. So, that’s kind 26 of where we are, where we’ve been, where we are today, and looking ahead. 27 28 We’ve had a significant amount of public engagement for this program and this slide just shows 29 a number of the activities that we’ve undertaken from Working Group meetings, community 30 meetings, meeting with decision-makers, we have a stellar project website that is updated with 31 all of our meeting information and all of the attachments and documents that have been 32 provided. We had stakeholder interviews, community surveys and we’re meeting also right now 33 with property owners who own large or significant number of parcels in the area to understand 34 what their thoughts are on the NVCAP. Two property owners are members of the Working 35 Group but some are not and we want to make sure they’re all connected to and understand the 36 latest proposals. So, we hope to conclude those hopefully this year. This year is getting short. 37 We have a number scheduled and that can be information that we can provide in January when 38 we return to the PTC. 39 40 Page 10 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. For the alternative’s development process, we really took into consideration a lot of different 1 data points. Existing conditions analyses, Council adopted goals, the Working Group, financial 2 analyses, architectural, qualitative and quantitative data and that helped to prepare the first 3 alternatives that were released earlier this year in January that were developed by our 4 consultant team. Again, this summer City and Staff have worked with the Working Group and 5 gathered community input to refine those alternatives and then, of course, coming with those 6 preferred alternatives or draft to Working Group, to the PTC, and City Council. 7 8 So, we want to talk a little bit about some of the constants that are across all the alternatives. 9 You’ll see that the heights and densities of the taller buildings on El Camino Real. That there is 10 transitions zones of heights and densities from higher density areas of existing single-family 11 homes. That’s there’s affordable housing envisioned being provided through a bonus program 12 on El Camino Real and Page Mill sites that would allow a 20-story or 20-story? 20-foot bonus for 13 sites that 100 percent workforce or 100 percent affordable housing. So, we’re hopeful that 14 some of those developers will get in the game and be able to acquire some of those sites and 15 build that housing. You’ll also see that we have transportation improvements that are pretty 16 consistent across the alternatives. Really what would amplify is that if there are an alternative 17 with a greater number of people projected, that some of those transportation improvements 18 might be calibrated to accommodate the greater number of people that would be expected, 19 and the greater number of trips that might be associated with that. 20 21 I’m going to turn it over now to Jean Eisberg and she’s going to take these next few slides so 22 Jean? 23 24 Ms. Jean Eisberg, Consultant: Ok, thank you. So, as Rachael mentioned the transportation 25 improvements at this point are pretty consistent across the three alternatives. So, we do 26 anticipate that the alternatives that do have more development associated with them would 27 get more improvements. Just as projects are paying into Impact Fees or doing improvements 28 based on off-site improvements required as part of a project. Just to orient you to the map 29 we’ve got some of these solid orange lines showing where ped and bike improvements are 30 focused. And sometimes that means widened bike lanes like on Park Boulevard or potentially 31 more of a [unintelligible] shared street design. Reducing the number of curb cuts to ensure 32 safety for pedestrians and bicycles and reducing those conflicts with vehicles. The red circles 33 are showing places where there would be potential intersection improvements both for 34 vehicles and for other modes. And then the red hash lines on interior streets are identifying 35 places for potential traffic calming measures. Additionally, we’ve got some orange hatching on 36 some of these large block sites for that 395 Page Mill and that 340 Portage and those are trying 37 to extend the street grid, break up those large expanses so that particularly pedestrians and 38 bicycles would have more mobility throughout the site. So, again this would be continued to be 39 Page 11 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. refined as we move through the process and once that preferred alternative is identified and 1 the traffic analysis is conducted on that scenario. 2 3 The next slide shows our methodology for evaluating potential development and so the tables 4 that we’ll talk about in the next couple slides calculate build-out or potential development that 5 could be built as a result of each alternative. And so, what we did is we looked at what is the 6 viability of these sites as opportunity sites to actually develop in the next 20-years or so in the 7 planned horizon. So, one, has the owner expressed interest in redevelopment? Two, are parcels 8 greater than 10,000-square feet? This tends to be the threshold at which a project is really 9 viable. Sites smaller than that contend to be difficult to develop. Either they’re too expensive, 10 hard to make the parking fit, etc. We took into account parcels with contiguous ownership. 11 There are many property owners that own multiple sites that could be consolidated to make a 12 site over 10,000-square feet and then we forwarded these into three tiers of potential. And so, 13 the Tier One sites have the most potential, the Tier Three sites have the lowest potential. 14 Maybe they’re smaller or more difficult to develop. We excluded parcels that had approved 15 entitlements, parcels that are owner-occupied single-family homes or owner or excuse me, 16 condo… commercial condos. Excluded water district parcels at the creek and excluded parcels 17 that have recently redeveloped in the last 10-years and so the next slide shows a map of where 18 those sites are located. We’ve got the green circles showing those Tier One sites. Those are the 19 highest potential. The orange dots showing the moderate potential Tier Two sites and the Tier 20 Three sites shown in yellow. We also have these red asterisk showing sites with proposed 21 project applications on them. 22 23 You’ll see on the next slide that these are applied in different ways within the different 24 alternatives and so for example, Alternative One there may be fewer incentives to 25 redevelopment and so we would anticipate that fewer sites would actually turn over. Where in 26 Alternative Three, which as Rachael is going to walk through in a minute, there’s higher 27 incentives for redevelopment in terms of densities and heights that are allowed, and therefore 28 we can anticipate that more sites would turn over. And so, this is a snapshot of what we could 29 anticipate in terms of development and you’ll see that we have a row that say realistic potential 30 in terms of new housing units and maximum potential. The maximum potential is if all of those 31 opportunity sites build-out. It’s probably an unlikely scenario but just to give you that feeling of 32 what could be anticipated. The realistic potential is the turnover really of the Tier One sites and 33 in some cases Tier Two sites. And then as we get into Alternative Three where we have more 34 incentives for redevelopment, potential turnover of Tier Three sites. We’ve also shown here the 35 potential build-out for office uses and as Rachael explained more. We see more office 36 development in Alternative Three compared to Alternative one and Two. Retail development is 37 tracking with residential development so the economic consultant for the project has identified 38 what that metric is for how much retail can be supported by new population and so that retail 39 commercial space is tracking with the increase in households. We also have potential build-out 40 Page 12 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. in terms of parks and open space. The scenario here is that the alternatives that allow for more 1 development would allow for potentially more Park Impact Fee and park dedication which 2 would increase the amount of park space. 3 4 And the next slide shows the metrics for what this development potential really means in terms 5 of people and jobs. And so just based on the City’s Inclusionary Zoning Requirements or on-site 6 for-sale units and the assumptions about fees in-lieu for rental projects. You see the below-7 market-rate housing units tracking with the increase in market-rate units. Likewise, the 8 residential population would obviously track with the number of units. Not too many jobs being 9 created compared to what’s there right now in any of the scenarios, but you see that 10 graduating with the additional commercial space. And then we’ve also identified a potential 11 jobs/housing ratio, so that’s the number of housing units that would be needed to support the 12 new jobs. Just making sure that we’re both accommodating jobs that are new jobs that may be 13 created as well as potential jobs that are there now. And then lastly, is the parks and open 14 space ratios so the City’s General Plan and the Parks Master Plan have metrics for goals and 15 targets, 4-acres per 1,000 new residents, and the General Plan has a 2-acre per 1,000 standard 16 based on neighbors’ parks. The Parks Master Plan has a 4-acre per 1,000 standard so we’re not 17 achieving that. Each alternative does a little better so that just demonstrates that the park 18 would either need to be identified in some other way; whether that’s through City acquisition 19 or some other format. 20 21 I’m going to pass it back to Rachael for the next slides to walk through the actual alternatives. 22 23 Ms. Tanner: Excellent. Thank you, Jean. I do want to note, Jean will have to disappear. She’s got 24 another Planning Commission, if you can believe that, with a different City. So, we thank her for 25 her expertise that she’s able to offer tonight and she will (interrupted) 26 27 Commissioner Alcheck: Rachael… Assistant Director Tanner, can I ask a quick question before 28 she leaves? I just… like a point of clarification (interrupted) 29 30 Chair Templeton: At the [unintelligible] of the Chair I would say. Chair Templeton? 31 32 Chair Templeton: When is Jean leaving? 33 34 Ms. Eisberg: I’m leaving at 7:00. 35 36 Chair Templeton: Do you anticipate getting through this before then so we could do it with the 37 regular round of questions, or should we? 38 39 Ms. Tanner: If you want to have some questions with Ms. Eisberg we should do that now. 40 Page 13 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Templeton: Alright, excellent. Thank you for bringing that up. Commissioner Alcheck 2 followed by Vice-Chair Roohparvar. 3 4 Commissioner Alcheck: So, this is just specific to the… if you… we could go back a slide if you 5 will? So, the… I guess you’re calling it… the summary of the feasibility of residential 6 development that you guys kicked off a minute ago suggests under each alternative a certain 7 number of units. Was that specific to a parcel or is that total because the units here, when you 8 talk about development potential, don’t align precisely with the numbers that are used in the 9 Feasibility Study? So, I’m just trying to understand if there’s two different… is there… is one the 10 entire area and one’s a… the Feasibility Study, when it says for example total units under each 11 prototype. That… I’m just trying to understand how did you arrive at net new housing units? Is 12 it different than the criteria used for the Feasibility Study? 13 14 Ms. Eisberg: Sure, and when you’re referring to the Feasibility Study, are you referring to 15 Attachment D from Strategic Economics? 16 17 Commissioner Alcheck: Yeah, so they do each alternative in the units… the number of total 18 units ranges from 18 to 192 in all these different sort of (interrupted) 19 20 Ms. Eisberg: Oh ok. So (interrupted) 21 22 Commissioner Alcheck: Like 192 being if we allowed 50 to 70-feet tall mixed-use residential 23 buildings. 24 25 Ms. Eisberg: Right. 26 27 Commissioner Alcheck: So, when you have 142 there, how… what category (interrupted) 28 29 Ms. Eisberg: Sure, so if I’m looking at Packet Page 50, which is one of the pages of Strategic 30 Economics’ Feasibility Study. They actually are showing you the prototype. So, for example, in 31 that left-hand row, townhomes. If you had 18 townhomes in that prototypical townhome and 32 then in the far-right column 192-units in the prototypical mixed-use multi-family residential. 33 And so, they're analyzing the feasibly of the product type as opposed… in addition to the 34 feasibility of Alternative Three with its 1,500 potential units. 35 36 Commissioner Alcheck: So, if (interrupted) 37 38 Ms. Tanner: So, for example (interrupted) 39 40 Page 14 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Alcheck: Just so I’m clear, so is there a connection between the 1,500-units let’s 1 say that you’ve listed hereunder Alternative Three and the number of “product type” that 2 would be inserted into the NVCAP area? And for example, what would that number be? Would 3 there be 10, 50 to 70-foot tall buildings, or I guess in this case would it be eight to multiple by 4 192? I’m just trying to figure out sort of if I… how many of the sites would have to have which 5 product types. Is there any information regarding that? 6 7 Ms. Eisberg: So, in general, on the way we’ve developed this methodology and what you’re 8 seeing on the screen right now. The densities and the… the densities that were used to 9 determine this development potential are based on the feasible product types that Strategic 10 Economics produced as part of their January report and what they’re referring to here. So, 11 although I can’t tell you how many sites are… we’ll actually probably could back out how many 12 sites are townhome sites versus how many sites are 50 to 70-foot mid-rise sites. And when 13 Rachael goes through the alternatives, you’ll be able to really see that on the map. It’s just we 14 don’t have… we can’t report to you right now the specific link between the two but 15 (interrupted) 16 17 Commissioner Alcheck: Ok so let me ask you one more question, maybe this will help me. In the 18 Feasibility Study for Alternative One, for example, it looks like none of the product types would 19 be likely or realistically feasible. So, if the suggestion that you could achieve 500 and potentially 20 as many as 860-units simply using townhomes? Is that the conclusion that I’m supposed to 21 draw here that the (interrupted) 22 23 Chair Templeton: Just to interrupt just a second. Ms. Tanner, will that be… that kind of question 24 be answered when you go through the alternatives? 25 26 Ms. Tanner: I will be (interrupted) 27 28 Chair Templeton: Because I want to make sure (interrupted) 29 30 Ms. Tanner: It will be. I think the way to think about it is that first what was developed for 31 feasibility were the product types and so Strategic Economics… also can folks hear me? Am I 32 coming through? 33 34 Chair Templeton: Yeah but I think your video is frozen. 35 36 Ms. Tanner: Yes, your images are frozen for me too so I don’t know how to stop that. I’m not 37 going to stop the screen share. I’m just going to (interrupted) 38 39 Chair Templeton: It’s fixed. It’s fixed. 40 Page 15 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Ms. Tanner: Ok [unintelligible – bad audio]. So, is that they first developed the different types 2 of building typology that are feasible. And so, this is not to complicate things, but let’s say 3 there… a building had 100-units and there were five of them in Alternative One. Those would 4 be five financially feasible buildings that would be suggested and so that’s kind of the building 5 types that are financially feasible in and of themselves. And then the Strategic Economics also 6 took a look at the overall alternatives to understand the interplay so there’s multiple dynamics 7 that go into the feasibility. There’s the building type and then there’s the overall scheme of how 8 they’re laid out. 9 10 Commissioner Alcheck: Ok I think I understand. I just… if I’m… if we’re going to have a 11 discussion at some point about these numbers and we’re going to say ok if Alternative One 12 realistically could result in 500-units. Maybe if you could just help me understand how would 13 you evaluate the… how those units would be delivered if the Feasibility Study showed you that 14 the only likely… somewhat likely product type would be townhomes? If… are we to conclude 15 that the 500-units (interrupted) 16 17 Ms. Tanner: So, there… that’s it. Yeah, so when we say realistically yield in that scenario, that is 18 talking about the tiers of the properties. So, Jean was mentioning that we have the properties 19 sorted into tiers and so then depending on that tier, right? So, if it’s a green site we think that’s 20 likely to redevelop. If it’s orange it’s Tier Two and then Yellow is Tier Three. So, under 21 Alternative One and Jean you can correct me, the green sites are being included. And then as 22 you go to the Alternative Two and Three, you’re including more and more sites because the 23 incentives are such that we… that it would yield and lead to those sites turning over and being 24 redeveloped. So, you’re seeing more development occur based on what is allowed to happen 25 on those sites. Does that make sense? 26 27 Commissioner Alcheck: Ok, more development of the townhome product type as opposed to 28 what in Alternative One? A mixed-use would be unlikely, is that (interrupted) 29 30 Ms. Tanner: I don’t know that it’s saying more or less that it’s townhomes, but for example, in 31 Alternative One, 340 Portage is envisioned to have a limited number of housing units, or some 32 parcels may not turn over at all and may not yield any housing because folks may look at that 33 and say well, I’d rather just keep what I have and not build something because these new 34 standards aren’t leading me to want to build a mixed-use building or a townhome or anything. 35 And so that’s what the maximum and realistic are really saying. Yes, if everybody decided to 36 build under these scenarios, that’s the maximum, but based on what we think would happen, 37 given the characteristics of the plan, what do we think realistically may come to fruition based 38 on the incentive package that is the plan? Does that make sense? Maybe we can continue 39 (interrupted) 40 Page 16 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Alcheck: I don’t want to take more time so I’ll wait to ask more questions to the 2 Staff after. 3 4 Ms. Tanner: Ok. Sorry if it’s confusing. 5 6 Chair Templeton: Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Alcheck. We have three other people 7 lined up. I encourage you to focus on questions that are specific to Ms. Eisberg’s presentation 8 and I feel confident that Ms. Tanner will be able to answer any questions that come up after 9 Ms. Eisberg leaves. So, Vice-Chair Roohparvar you’re next followed by Hechtman and Lauing. 10 11 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Sure, a quick question. Can you go back two slides? What’s… sorry, 12 what’s the time horizon that you used for the… no, for the graphs. For realistically getting that 13 500, the realistic potential, what’s the time horizon on that? What was that based on? When 14 are we going to have that? In 5-years, 10-years? Is that (interrupted) 15 16 Ms. Eisberg: Maybe Rachael can… may Rachael can speak more to the total time horizon of the 17 plan. This was just based… I threw out there a 20-year estimate. Some of that’s just based on 18 how the traffic model… frankly how the traffic modeling works in the County. 19 20 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Got it. Ok, that’s helpful I think, so 20-years? 21 22 Ms. Eisberg: But sometimes this takes a generation. 23 24 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yeah because we can’t force right, but we can’t force homeowners to… 25 you can only inertinite and tie together the different types of development in order to get the 26 results we want, but we can’t force people. Ok, I think that answers my question, 20-years. 27 28 Chair Templeton: Thank you. Commissioner Hechtman followed by Commissioner Lauing. 29 30 Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. On the next slide, I’m trying to understand how the 31 calculation of residential population was made. So, if you can flip over one slide. Oh yeah, right 32 there. So, let’s just take Alternative Three, 3,610, and if you look at the footnote by the heading 33 it says it looks like the calculation is based on 2.55 persons per household. But when I divide 34 3,610 by 2.55 I get something like 1,415-units total, but when you back one slide. Then you look 35 at Alternative Three, the realistic is 1,490 added to the 142 so that’s 1,632. So, I’m just not 36 understanding the relationship between those two. 37 38 Ms. Eisberg: Sure. So, we typically assume 5 percent vacancy rate in terms of housing units. 39 That’s pretty standard and so yes, we’ve multiplied out based on the current household side 40 Page 17 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. and assumed a 5 percent vacancy rate. So, there’s a difference between households and having 1 units. 2 3 Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. 4 5 Chair Templeton: Thank you. Commissioner Lauing. 6 7 Commissioner Lauing: I didn’t know Bart [note – Commissioner Hechtman] was going to be so 8 fast. Sorry. Staying on that slide I had one other question there before going back up to the 9 previous slide and when you’re calculating the office jobs there in Alternative, let’s see 10 Alternative Three. You’re figuring that all that office space only results in 430 because I think 11 you’re using the VTA estimate of 295-square feet per person, but that’s old and high. There was 12 like for example there’s a question on the Wayfield Study in ’17 that it had actually gone down 13 to 194. So, if you use that number it’s actually 653 so we should have some agreement, not 14 tonight but sometime, as to what we really think the average size per person is because the 15 difference between 430 and 653 is material. So, I would just point that out and we should figure 16 that one out. 17 18 Back up on Table… unless you wanted to comment on it, I’ll just go on? No? 19 20 Ms. Eisberg: Good comment. Great point. 21 22 Commissioner Lauing: So, then back up on Table 1, a couple of questions. Again, I think it’s wise 23 for you to be doing realistic as opposed to maximum so we’re not getting out ahead of 24 ourselves. That’s really solid. I’m trying to plot… I get why the BMR is always staying at 15 25 percent, but I’m trying to plot how much more office in your model, or the economic model as 26 well, is needed to get more housing. So, in the first one where… Alternative One is 500. If we go 27 up to 1,170, that’s the ratio of about 2.34, but we have to go up almost four times the amount 28 of office space to pull that off to get another say 600-units. If we go higher it gets even wilder, 29 so if… just to get the difference in realistic housing 1,170 to go up to 1,490. If I’m doing this 30 right, we need to have almost four times the amount of office compared to what we need at 31 the 1,170 number. So, I guess… and I’m just looking at your overview here. I’m not digging into 32 the numbers, but at some point, I’d like to see how you get there and what we’re calculating. 33 Why we have to quadruple the office just to get basically 300-units? So, you can pass on that or 34 you can give me a headline and we can go back to it later. 35 36 Ms. Eisberg: I can try to give you a headline. It is not perfect math. This is one based on, as 37 Rachael goes to the alternatives, the direction of the alternative, the vision of the alternative, 38 and so for example in Alternative Two. We’re really just replacing the amount of office that’s 39 there now and allowing some additional professional small format office. Think of medical, 40 Page 18 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. dentist office, or architect office 5,000-square foot versus Alternative Three where, as you 1 alluded to, using office essentially as an incentive to get more housing. Perhaps they even move 2 in tandem. So, we don’t have the exact metric for what that is. How much office do you need to 3 give or allow in order to encourage the housing units? So, we can’t… we haven’t suggested that 4 we’re calculating that the same way across each of all the alternatives. 5 6 Commissioner Lauing: Ok. I’ll look forward to what’s underneath the headline because at this 7 point it still looks like we’re quadrupling office space to get 300 more housing units. And that 8 starts to get questionable in terms of the alternative use of the space. Again, it’s supposed to 9 be a grant neighbor. 10 11 Ms. Tanner: And we can get more into that both today and then also in January when Ms. 12 Eisberg will be able to join us again. 13 14 Chair Templeton: Yes, and it’s getting close. If you can wrap it up, Commissioner Lauing. She’s 15 [unintelligible] (inaudible) 16 17 Commissioner Lauing: I’m done, I’m done. 18 19 Chair Templeton: Oh ok. Great, so thank you so much Ms. Eisberg and I think we can come back 20 in more depth, like Ms. Tanner said, after the conclusion of the remainder of the presentation. 21 22 Ms. Tanner: Great, thank you so much. So, I’m going to walk through at a somewhat high level. I 23 do get carried away because I’m very invested in these alternatives and I think there’s a lot of 24 richness here that we want to talk about. What I do want to say before as an overall statement 25 for all three is you go from Alternative One to Three, you see more development increasing 26 with Alternative One, Two, and Three. And I really want to honor the work of the Working 27 Group that has 17 times over the last 2-years through the summer, through Shelter in Place, in 28 multiple iterations, and we’ve had just really strong participation, really great discussion, and 29 dialog and I think really earnest work. And so, one of the things we really wanted to do with 30 Alternatives One, Two, and Three is trying to present different perspectives and as you see 31 from the Strategic Economics, not all of them were seen to be financially feasible perspectives, 32 but we wanted to bring to the PTC and the Council the hopes and the aspirations of the 33 Working Group. And didn’t… weren’t able to get to 100 percent consensus from the Working 34 Group or even a supermajority I would say of recommending one alternative over the other. 35 And I think each of them represent different kind of groupings of members and different 36 preferences packages and so we’ll… that will become clearer I think as I explain a little bit about 37 each alternative. 38 39 Page 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. And so Alternative One reflects a desire to retain the history office… history 340 Portage 1 building which was a cannery and part of the tradition of our community as part of the Valley of 2 Hearts Delight. It was owned by Thomas Foon Chew who was one of… a very successful Chinese 3 businessman and a very important feature of our history here not only in Silicon Valley and in 4 Palo Alto, but really for the world and for the Chinese American community. And so, because of 5 the cultural events associated with him and with the building is deemed historic for the events. 6 There’s also a small office building here that is also deemed historic and so this alternative 7 focuses on the retention of 340 Portage. The building is retained. It is retained either and used 8 as its current uses which is mixed of R&D, office, and retail, or it could be adaptively reused into 9 housing. You can see on the parking lot… what’s currently the parking lot of 340 Portage, in that 10 bright yellow color abutting Matadero Creek. That would be envisioned to become housing and 11 then surface parking remaining behind. 12 13 You see on the other major parcel which is current occupied by an office building where the 14 major tenant is Cloudera and that blue represents the outline of that current office building 15 that’s there. And there’s currently a parking garage and this green berm and kind of tree-lined 16 area that currently exists and is used by many neighbors as a park and as a place to walk your 17 dog and to kind of have some recreation. So, it’s envisioned that that parking lot could 18 potentially add some housing, potentially townhomes on that parking lot. 19 20 And then you’ll see that something that carries through each of the alternatives, sorry, is along 21 El Camino Real and Page Mill. Kind of concentrating some of the higher density and higher 22 heights, particularly on the corner of… near El Camino and Lambert Avenue, some of the higher 23 heights. And where you see that 50/70, that’s where we’re talking about the 70-foot being the 24 limit for 100 percent workforce or 100 percent affordable housing and those would be deed-25 restricted units. You can see behind, 35-foot height limits here which again represents some of 26 the Working Group members who preferred that as their maximum height that they were 27 comfortable with and you also see that reflected in the northern part here on the corner of 28 Park Boulevard and Lambert Avenue a 35-foot height limit. And those are envisioned to be 29 mixed-use where there could be some retail uses. In particular, you’ll see carried throughout 30 the alternatives and envision that Portage Avenue could be a retail corridor. An area that there 31 is a signalized intersection there. It could be kind of become this main street for the Plan Area 32 where there’s retail, amenities, and a place where folks can gather. The… in part of what we see 33 in this alternative is… and it relates to the question that Commissioner Lauing was asking which 34 is really trying to move away from having office uses here. And so, as office uses redevelop, 35 they are no longer going to be allowed. So, that’s one reason why we show the existing 36 Cloudera building remaining in that the property owner would likely want to retain that 37 building because if it was demolished. That property owner would not be able to rebuild that 38 office space in a new building and so overtime trying to have office use exit the Plan Area and 39 yet still allowing for some small format office like a dentist office, optometrist, some neighbors 40 Page 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. serving offices like that versus large format kind of corporate headquarters that we see 1 currently. And so that’s why the office is very low in this plan alternative. 2 3 In Alternative Two, this reflects a desire to have a little bit more change as you can see. The 340 4 Portage building, the historic building here is envisioned to be removed and replaced with 5 multi-family housing with a height up to 50-feet. The office that they currently have, the square 6 footage, would be reconstituted into a new office building. That would be here towards the 7 corner of Portage and Ash Street. And one of the reasons we put that building there is there’s a 8 real desire to really make sure that Park Boulevard becomes and is even elevated further as a 9 bike boulevard and a major bike thoroughfare throughout the plan, throughout all alternatives. 10 And so, wanting to put uses that might be more destination, further away from Park Boulevard, 11 or to have limited curb cuts onto Park so that it can again, become a better bike and pedestrian 12 area. And so, in this way cars would be encouraged to come off of El Camino onto Portage and 13 go to the parking facilities for that office building. And then we also, as you remember from the 14 transportation plan, look at having kind of a [unintelligible] here that would encourage really 15 slow speeds for cars and it wouldn’t be a place that you’re going to drive through if you’re 16 trying to get someplace quickly. With the park adjacency here and having these passageways 17 that if the building’s not there, that allows some porosity and movement across the site. Really 18 this becoming a destination for recreation for residents for hanging out and for spending your 19 leisure time. We envision that the improved Matadero Creek would be a centerpiece of this 20 park. Right now, the creek is channelized, it’s not very attractive, you barely know it’s there, it’s 21 behind some bushes, and so we really want it to become a more prominent feature and really 22 an asset to the community. On the Cloudera site, you see here similarly the existing office 23 square footage reconstituted into a new building and then to see some multi-family residential 24 there. Again, with more park space as well on Park Boulevard. The Working Group really did 25 feel strongly one, that we want to get to that, as close to that 4-acres per 1,000 as we can. So, 26 we want to keep pushing that and that having the parks adjacent to Park Boulevard. Not only is 27 it in the name of the street, but again with that biking activity that we see. That again, it’s really 28 a place where people are biking along, they’re stopping at the park, maybe they’re going to 29 some of the retail that’s nearby and enjoying themselves and really having a European style 30 town square where there’s housing adjacent to these parks and they’re really activated and 31 livened by those residents. You can see that the office building on Cloudera site is also most 32 adjacent to the train station. Again, for commuters, that makes it an easy place to get to for 33 their commuting. And then you’ll see in this alternative, single-family homes here would be to 34 remain of course but they could be also up zoned to allow four plexus, allow four units per lot. 35 So, a modest re-zoning that would allow a design that still resembles a single-family home 36 where it’s kind of has that neighborhood character that we want to retain but does add some 37 modest density for those property owners who would like to have that change. One thing I do 38 want to note and again is constant throughout. You see here that the buildings on the corner of 39 El Camino Real and Page Mill, this corner here, are listed at 35-foot height limits and that is a 40 Page 21 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. height limit that already exists in our code. That when you're approximate to single-family 1 homes, you need to have a height transition of about 150-feet where it’s at 35-feet. And so, we 2 wanted to respect that and maintain that buffer zone and that transition zone near to the 3 single-family homes. And so, you see that reflected here, really reflecting the current zoning in 4 that we would want to continue to have that persist. Likewise, you see that these parcels here 5 are zoned as kind of an industrial office designation and we propose to retain that. And that 6 provides again a buffer between those properties and the single-family homes and then the 7 new residential which might be a higher height. But with this building stepping back or stepping 8 down to 40-feet again, as it begins to abut the single-family homes, or possibly four plexus but 9 again, maintaining that 35-foot height. So, even if it was four units on a lot, we want that house 10 like character to persist in that area of the plan. And we’ll go to and you’ll see here compared to 11 Alternative One, we have the heights at 50-feet for this mixed-use district here. 12 13 And then lastly Alternative Three we have again very similar to Alternative Two. The main 14 difference here is that we’re allowing more office space with the idea that having more office 15 space that can… having more office space would allow and incentivize some property owners to 16 build the housing and to achieve the park space and some of the other amenities that we’d like 17 to see. So, you see this office building is a little bit bigger, I think it’s about 100,000-square feet 18 in addition to what is currently on the site and you still see the housing units, the parkland, and 19 similarly, the office on the 340 Portage site is also increased. But other than that, the site is… 20 the plan is pretty much the same as Alternative Two with those exceptions. And then we do 21 want to point out what is drawn out in the plan and will be talked about on a later slide. This is 22 the area that is currently shown and zoned for kind of that industrial use. And just here at the 23 corner of Park… Page Mill and Park Boulevard, we had a relatively recently built-off… 24 combination of office, a little bit of retail and there’s a café and housing that’s been I think fairly 25 successful. And there’s an idea that that type of housing pattern could continue, or should we 26 retain the industrial zoning that’s here as a buffer between the train tracks? There’d be the 27 industrial use and those residential uses. And as I said before, many people live near train tracks 28 and it’s just a fine place to live, but also could be that we want to lean towards retaining that 29 use which is not very prominent in the City and maybe we want to protect that type of use. So, 30 that’s a discussion that we hope that the PTC will have today. 31 32 I do want to just go over a couple of notes and I will try to be brief so we can get to our public 33 comment and discussion. There was a preference for Alternative Two amongst the Working 34 Group. Again, we didn’t have I would say a supermajority that shows one alternative over the 35 other but that was a slight majority that did prefer Alternative Two with some folks preferring 36 Alternative One and only one Working Group member preferring Alternative Three. Although, 37 the PTC has received correspondence from obviously other community members who do 38 support Alternative Three. 39 40 Page 22 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Parkland, the desire for parkland to be equivalent to the 4-acres per 1,000 envisioned in our 1 planning documents, our Master Planning Documents, is something that the Working Group 2 really, really wants to see. Understanding that all of that cannot be born by private 3 development but then seeking to have for example any park fees collected either spent within 4 the Planned Area to acquire more parkland or immediately adjacent to the Plan Area in areas 5 that are walkable. So, not across El Camino Real, not across Page Mill, not across the train 6 tracks, but really walkable to the Plan Area and that would be at least within a quarter mile or 7 less adjacent to the Plan Area. 8 9 They were supported for higher densities along El Camino Real with the exceptions that we 10 talked about and a desire again to retain those transition heights between the single-family 11 home and those lower height district and the higher height district. There was also a great 12 support for the transportation improvements. Really, really wanting to emphasize that bike and 13 pedestrian connectivity is a primary and I would say there’s consensus amongst the Working 14 Group to really prioritize bikes and pedestrians to try to minimize car access to and car traffic 15 through the site. And really making it a place where you’re really only going to drive your car 16 because you need to get to a destination. Not because you’re trying to get through the site or 17 use it as a short cut. There is a tremendous support for having low or below-market-rate 18 housing. Presently, we’re still maintaining the 15 percent BMR that’s required across the City. 19 We will be asking Strategic Economics, and they of course did the BMR study before, if they can 20 look at what can we do to increase that level of affordability of inclusionary. One of the 21 challenges of that inclusionary rate is the depth of affordability it reaches and so what can the 22 City do to have more 100 percent affordable housing? A lot of those tools are more on the 23 financing and policy side and less on the zoning side in terms of how the City can actually 24 support the development of more affordable housing. And we do want to see those pursued 25 both Citywide and some of those would impact the Plan Area. There is a desire for more traffic 26 analysis which we explained would be part of further study and there was a community online 27 survey and there was a preference in that survey for Alternative Three for higher densities and 28 higher residential uses. Primarily wanting to see more housing really achieved through this 29 planning process. 30 31 I’m not going to go over this slide, but you have it in your Packet. Just trying to weigh the 32 wealth of benefits and impacts. One note that we do want to say is the Vehicle Miles Traveled 33 here is not the VMT analysis for CEQA. We’re really just trying to think about trip generation 34 and the Parking Demand Management parking here does not reflect the impacts of a TDM 35 program. So, if we develop a Transportation Demand Management Program we may be able to 36 both impact VMT. Overall impact the number of trips and impact the circulation of this area 37 using that type of tool to impact policy and again, you have these slides it… these… this in your 38 Packet as well. Really trying to weigh the alternatives against the community or sorry, 39 community; the City Council adopted goals and more checkmarks mean an indication that we 40 Page 23 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. believe and have assessed that that alternative provides more of that benefit and meets that 1 goal to a greater extent than the other alternatives. 2 3 We talked a little bit about financial feasibility and hopefully, my explanation here will make 4 things clearer. We’ll see. We really had two analyses. So, in January analysis was published with 5 the first set of three alternatives that were developed by the consultants, and they… part of 6 what they did is they said what are five financially feasible building typologies that could exist 7 that we see being built in areas around Palo Alto and that we believe could be financially 8 feasible in this area? And that ranges from three-story townhomes to eight-story multifamily 9 buildings and some of those designs include ground-floor retail. I looked at Park Fees, found 10 that Park Fees are more viable than Park Land Dedication. That additional ground-floor retail 11 might require incentives. In some ways, ground floor retail is seen as an amenity, not a 12 moneymaker for the developer, but more of an amenity to the users of that space. 13 14 There is a need to overcome the value of existing office uses and so this is something that we 15 want to continue to look closer at. There’s the financial feasibility of housing development in 16 and of itself. Does this development make what we believe is enough profit that it would 17 incentive a developer to say yes, I will build that building because I know it’s something that I 18 can use to generate the income that I’m looking for? So, that’s one measure of feasibility, but 19 the other thing that we’re facing here is existing uses, right? Someone is generating revenues or 20 income from an existing use and we need to have zoning and other incentives that say hey, I’m 21 going to go from this use that I have to another use. And so, we’ve asked Strategic Economics 22 to really look at that and they did do some work and we’re hoping that they can continue to 23 build on that to really see what would it do… require to overcome I guess the inertia of the 24 existing uses that are there and, in some cases, those are office uses. 25 26 They identified Alternative Three which they look at of these last three draft alternatives, the 27 latest ones, to see that that’s one of the financially feasible alternatives. That efficient housing 28 types and lower parking requirements led to supporting some of the greater financial 29 feasibility. It has greater mixes… mix of uses allows for more office and has the highest 30 opportunity to achieve the community benefits again because we believe we will see more 31 development take place under that alternative. 32 33 Traffic and transportation, we’re going to study this in the future and our future studies are 34 going to include traditional intersection Level of Service Study, the Vehicle Miles Traveled 35 Analysis, and looking really at all modes, bikes, and pedestrians as well as vehicles. How they’ll 36 move to and through the site and what are the impacts going to be generated from those trips? 37 38 We talked a little bit about the industrial zones parcels and we look forward hearing what the 39 PTC has to say about those parcels and finally Matadero Creek. So, again Matadero Creek is 40 Page 24 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. there. A great natural asset that we want to turn from a channelized asset to a natural asset. 1 We had a consulting firm look at the feasibility kind of what would it take to naturalize the 2 creek both in terms of could it be done? Do we have the space? What it would require? What 3 are some preliminary estimates of cost and they developed several concepts, five concepts, of 4 naturalization? And three were technically feasible in that they could sustain the water and 5 actually prevent the flooding and make sure that there is no damage to property or loss of life 6 or anything. So, of those concepts, Concept 3 was preferred by the Working Group, and 7 Concept 1A was preferred and is recommended by Staff. 8 9 So, Concept 1A, which you see here in the slide, would use… would stay within the boundaries 10 of the creek easement and the creek is managed by the Santa Clara Valley Water District but it 11 is not owned by them. They have an easement across the length of the creek with the private 12 properties that abut the creek. And so, this stays within the boundaries of that private… of that 13 easement and really works within those boundaries. And it is across this… across the street, 14 across Lambert Avenue into Boulware Park. Including the expanded Boulware Park and we’ve 15 been working with Parks and Rec to think about how that would impact the designs that they’re 16 putting together for the expanded park and renovated park. And then it would require a new 17 bridge here at Lambert Avenue. It would need to be widened to sustain the water flow and 18 then go here and the across Park Boulevard and on out of the Plan Area. 19 20 Alternative… Concept 3 is much more expanded and it requires more area and so this provides 21 the greatest opportunity for naturalization and really restoring the creek to a natural flowing 22 creek that can change direction and have different character over the course of its life and from 23 season to season. However, it would require a significant amount of private land, which would 24 either need to be purchased or an easement developed or some type of agreement where the 25 property owner would be willing to engage with that. It would also take up a significant part of 26 both the new Boulware Park and the existing Boulware Park and that wouldn’t be available for 27 other things like ball fields, playgrounds, etc. which the community has been working to design 28 recently. 29 30 So, again the next steps, we’ll come back in January. We will then go to the City Council. Our 31 consultants will be engaged again to refine the alternatives and to do… conduct our studies and 32 then we’ll return to City Council with that analysis and information for refinements and 33 direction Staff… well, they will direct Staff to prepare the draft plan and to begin developing the 34 scope for the EIR and conducting the EIR. 35 36 So, that is a lot of information. We have also developed a Miro board this evening for 37 discussion. We’re going to try it, see if it’s helpful, but we may end up coming back to the slide. 38 So, I’m going to stop sharing my screen at this time and turn it back over to Chair Templeton. 39 40 Page 25 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Templeton: Thank you very much. This is indeed very exciting work that has been done 1 here. Before we go to public comment I wanted to give the Commissioners one more shot at 2 any clarifying questions on the material that has been presented? I see Commissioner Riggs 3 hand up. You get to go first. 4 5 Commissioner Riggs: Great, so Rachael, I…. my… I have some questions about the creek and 6 where other alternatives looked at and particularly where… it seems like all the alternatives are 7 daylighting. Was there an alternative assessed that actually completely undergrounded? 8 9 Ms. Tanner: Well, the creek is not underground now so I think (interrupted) 10 11 Commissioner Riggs: I know. Did… was there alternatives assessed that culverted the creek? 12 Completely culverted Matadero Creek? 13 14 Ms. Tanner: No, the assessment was to naturalize it. To explore further naturalization of the 15 creek so we did not explore undergrounding it. 16 17 Commissioner Riggs: That was just an assumption? 18 19 Ms. Tanner: The desire and the direction of the study from the Council was to explore 20 naturalizing the creek so we did not look at other options. 21 22 Chair Templeton: Alright, any further questions Commissioner Riggs? Oh, we may have lost him. 23 24 Commissioner Riggs: No, no, that was… I mean I… that was it. That… I mean I don’t want to 25 opinionate at this point. 26 27 Chair Templeton: That’s… I appreciate it. Commissioner Lauing followed by Commissioner 28 Alcheck. 29 30 Commissioner Lauing: Yeah, just a couple quick questions on what Ms. Tanner just discussed. 31 So, is the creek cost calculated in the feasibility at this point? 32 33 Ms. Tanner: No. If the cost… and I will say the estimates don’t take into account some 34 significant costs like purchasing the land that would be needed for the creek and things that I 35 think are difficult to estimate at this time, or certainly would be negotiated and so it really is a 36 rough estimate. I do love [unintelligible] but they are not the best at estimating sometimes. It 37 did not employ the services of the cost estimator formally for that cost estimation. 38 39 Page 26 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Lauing: Ok and then the overall… on the product types the overall feasibility was 1 the probable rent or purchase price calculated in that. Is that how you ultimately got the 2 feasibility? 3 4 Ms. Tanner: Yes, that includes what they believed the rents would be, and again, of course, all 5 of this is pre-COVID. I think there is an assumption that may need to be adjusted, but it’s just so 6 early to tell what those adjustments would need to be in a post-COVID rent purchase 7 environment. 8 9 Commissioner Lauing: Right, sure, and that all came from the consultant? It didn’t come from 10 talking with developers, right? 11 12 Ms. Tanner: The consultant did interview developers and so that was part of the formulation of 13 the feasibility both in terms of what they’re seeing as their rents and purchase prices and then 14 what types their building. You know again, what are they actually bringing to market in Silicon 15 Valley? 16 17 Commissioner Lauing: Do you know how sensitive the yellow going to green is? When we saw 18 this in the last we got BMR calculations, they were showing it as almost impossible, but when 19 you drill down it was 100th of a point relative to the return on cost. So, I’m just wondering if 20 they… about that sensitivity, and also the thing that they pointed out is that in the particular 21 project, a given project if they got $2 million from somewhere else. It radically changed all the 22 factors so is that probably what we’re looking at here? 23 24 Ms. Tanner: Yeah, it would be very similar and I think we’re fortunate it’s the same firm. So, 25 we’ll be talking apples and apples when we’re talking about the analysis. 26 27 Commissioner Lauing: And then lastly you talked about El Camino staying at 35-feet if it was 28 going… because of the transitioning all along El Camino there and that’s except if we get an 29 affordable housing project that would go to 70? 30 31 Ms. Tanner: So, yeah, so it’s almost that. So, adjacent to the single-family home zoned parcels it 32 would be 35-feet. The portions that are further towards Lambert I think it’s basically after 33 Acacia, would be at the 50-feet and that in those areas as well, Acacia south, there would be a 34 bonus program that would be up to 70-feet for 100 percent workforce and 100 percent 35 affordable housing. That would also be allowed on the Cloudera parcel on Page Mill. That bonus 36 on the part that is abutting Page Mill Road. 37 38 Commissioner Lauing: Ok so there are specific areas carved out. Only those areas can be the 39 70-foot. 40 Page 27 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Ms. Tanner: That is the proposal. PTC could propose something different but that’s where we’re 2 coming in as Staff with (interrupted) 3 4 Commissioner Lauing: No, I just wanted to know the thinking as of now. Thanks very much. 5 6 Ms. Tanner: Yep, that’s great. 7 8 Commissioner Lauing: Back to you Chair Templeton. 9 10 Chair Templeton: Thank you so much Commissioner Lauing. Alright, Commissioner Alcheck, 11 you’re next. 12 13 Commissioner Alcheck: Hi. A couple questions for Staff. When was the last NVCAP meeting? 14 15 Ms. Tanner: We had one yesterday to preview the… today and try to answer any clarifying 16 questions that our Working Group members had and before then I think it was August. 17 18 Commissioner Alcheck: How many meetings since the alternatives were released? 19 20 Ms. Tanner: Well, we’ve had a number of alternatives. The very, very first ones were released in 21 January. These most recent ones were developed and I think we… Doria [note – Commissioner 22 Summa], maybe you can help me, I think it was in August that we showed this most recent 23 iterationish. Something around I think (interrupted) 24 25 Commissioner Summa: That sounds about right. I’m bad with dates but that sounds about right. 26 I will say because of the number of people involved in the meetings. I mean you could always 27 take more time to discuss these things and I think that to get to… I think that that’s what we 28 need to do later tonight after we hear from the public, also is to identify areas where there may 29 be things that we want from some… one of the alternatives in the other alternative and those 30 kinds of refinements because there’s never enough time to talk about these things. 31 32 Ms. Tanner: That’s very true. 33 34 Commissioner Alcheck: I’m going to continue at the questions real quick. So, I’m just sort of 35 curious from the perspective of someone not on that Committee. Are the alternatives… have 36 the alternatives evolved a great deal or are they sort of following a… could you tell that they’re 37 cousins? 38 39 Page 28 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Ms. Tanner: Well, I think that… I don’t want to avoid your question. I feel that they have 1 evolved significantly but they’re not… I don’t think they’re radically different from what we 2 unveiled in January of this year and what we brought to the PTC. But I think there have been 3 some significant and important changes both in the layout that you see in a plan view but also 4 to the substance of what policy proposals are behind some of the ideas. 5 6 Commissioner Alcheck: I presume that property owners inside the NVCAP area saw the latest 7 alternatives when they were published in August. Do you think that’s safe to assume? 8 9 Ms. Tanner: I feel like most folks that we’ve talked to have been following somewhat closely or 10 at least tangentially are aware. 11 12 Commissioner Alcheck: Ok. I guess the thing I’m most surprised about is that you guys haven’t 13 gone in-depth yet or maybe you haven’t shed light on the Planning Department’s perspective 14 on… I’m piecing this together myself, but 2-weeks ago the largest single parcel in this area but 15 forth an application that freezes the current zoning in place to develop 85 units. Presumably, 16 they saw your alternatives, spent 3-months with them, and determined that they weren’t 17 particularly attractive. So, I guess I’m curious if Staff feels the same way I do which is that the 18 development of the 85 units blows up this entire NVCAP situation? That if that largest parcel 19 goes the direction that the landowner is proposing it go, that all of this work is in jeopardy. 20 21 Ms. Tanner: I certainly think that the proposal that’s been put forward for 200 Portage would 22 preclude any of the designs for any of the alternatives for that parcel. So, Alternative One, Two, 23 or Three as it relates to that particular parcel which is 12-acres would not be able to come to 24 fruition under that proposal at least not as conceived. I will say some of the mobility elements 25 are included, I think some of the efforts to have the street grid reconnected and have some 26 park space are conceived of and carried forward through that proposal. There are 27 representatives from that Sobrato organization that owns the parcel and they has been a 28 representative on the Working Group has participated consistently in the Working Group 29 dialog. I won’t speak for the developer and if the Commission decides, later on, they could 30 direct questions if those representatives are willing and in line to answer questions about that 31 proposal and explain their reasons for bringing that forward. I think part of what we have been 32 working to do as Staff has really helped the Working Group to understand that this plan has to 33 be developed in collaboration with property owners. This is 100 percent privately owned land 34 with the exception of the streets and so if property owners are not partners in bringing this to 35 fruition. It will not come to fruition. I think there is some challenge in that some of the 36 alternatives maybe don’t reflect that reality and concern from some property owners of what 37 they may or may not do if they do become the zoning and rules and would they be able to 38 enact and bring to light those alternatives. So, that’s a long way of saying that Staff was 39 surprised, took a little bit of the wind out of our sails but there are additional 48-acres in this 40 Page 29 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Plan Area that are not insignificant and there are other property owners. We just had that pre-1 screening for the property proposal on El Camino between Pepper and Olive. And there are 2 folks who want to build housing and who want to play ball if you will with the plan and so we 3 are a little… we’re happy to see 85 townhomes. It’s housing units that we haven’t seen and 4 that’s great. We’re happy to see some of the connectivity and other things. Certainly, some of 5 what everyone wants to see. Some of the building is being retained including the monitor roofs. 6 Some of the building is demolished which some folks do not want to see, but we don’t think its 7 reasonable to give up hope for the entire Plan Area. 8 9 Commissioner Alcheck: I have another question for you. Do you think that the current zoning is 10 most similar to Alternative One, Two, or Three? 11 12 Ms. Tanner: I would have to consider that for a minute. I’m not (interrupted) 13 14 Commissioner Alcheck: And I guess my question is are any of the alternatives more restrictive? 15 16 Ms. Tanner: Well, certainly Alternative One would propose to not allow the reconstitution of 17 new office space so you wouldn’t be able to build new offices, or to rebuild any office that you 18 demolish. 19 20 Commissioner Alcheck: Does it… I don’t know this… is Staff concerned that in… that the 21 likelihood of development of let’s say a product type with 78 units was deemed unlikely under 22 Alternative One and Two and yet the largest parcel owner is proposing doing just that. Does it 23 concern Staff that the Feasibility Study might be… does it create skepticism in your mind? 24 25 Ms. Tanner: Well, I think part of what the Feasibility Study included is land acquisition costs. So, 26 for those who are already holding property if it’s not changing hands, it does create a little bit 27 of a different scenario, and so that is a little bit different. Townhomes were shown to be 28 feasible though, a feasible product type. So, it just happens that one of the larger parcels is 29 choosing a lower density or proposing a lower density product type that is also feasible for that 30 site that could potentially sustain a larger density but they’re choosing a lower density product 31 type. 32 33 Commissioner Alcheck: Ok the… it… well, I appreciate that there may be representatives of the 34 property owners in the room, but is there… how do I ask this question of Staff? Is there an 35 effort afoot in the last 21-days since you received the application to engage the property owner 36 in a conversation about embarking on the adventure that this is, or has that process not been 37 initiated yet? 38 39 Page 30 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Ms. Tanner: We did meet with the property owner and representatives from 340 Portage and 1 had a good conversation. Again, I think they’ve been partners all along and participating and so 2 I think that what I think many could read is that… from this situation is that the direction of… 3 was not maybe satisfactory to what they had in mind for the future of their land. 4 5 Commissioner Alcheck: Ok and then my last question, you had the consultant that was… that 6 had to leave early, suggested that the timeline for her realistic estimates was approximately 20-7 years. Does… if… I’m sort of looking at the alternative… the… these graphs that you created. If 8 you remove the 200 Portage site, could you clarify what the realistic number is? How those 9 would be impacted based on what you allotted those sites for housing? 10 11 Ms. Tanner: I think we do have those numbers (interrupted) 12 13 Commissioner Alcheck: And I just want to make one other point which is, is it safe for me to 14 assume… because you had said this a minute ago… that you have to rely on turnover and land 15 acquisition and sort of volunteer… they have to volunteer into this opportunity. Is it safe to 16 assume that the expectation of development for units not including 200 Portage were weighted 17 on the second half of the two-decade timeframe? Right, so Portage seemed like the most likely 18 to get redeveloped in the near term and the 8,000 potential maximum units for example in one 19 of the scenarios I would… is it safe to assume that those were weighted in the final year? So, 20 two questions there. 21 22 Ms. Tanner: We didn’t develop a phasing approach where we said like when we think they’ll 23 develop, but really just trying to think like over the next 20-years. So, it wasn’t that we said well 24 in year 15 we thin this parcel will turn over. We didn’t get to that specificity but more kind of 25 thinking what’s the… again, what’s the overall time horizon that we’re looking at the planning 26 coming to fruition. 27 28 Commissioner Alcheck: Ok. I’m not expecting an answer tonight but I do think that it would be 29 really helpful if at the following meeting, which would take place in January when we have 30 more time to chat if we could get a breakdown of the… I don’t have… I don’t have the graph on 31 my Packet right now but the graph that she had put up. If we… that consultant had put up. If 32 200 Portage results in 85 units of housing, what would the numbers be in the alternatives 33 assuming they were even feasible or as attractive to developers if for example the density on 34 the largest site was so diminished. 35 36 Ms. Tanner: And we have begun that analysis and we’re happy to share that with PTC. 37 38 Commissioner Alcheck: Ok, that would be helpful I think because it’s kind of hard to debate the 39 numbers if we’re unsure about maybe a big portion of them. Thank you. 40 Page 31 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Templeton: Thank you very much and then after Commissioner Alcheck is Commissioner 2 Summa followed by Commissioner Hechtman. 3 4 Commissioner Summa: Thank you. I had a question for Staff about the application from 200 5 Portage I guess it is for the 85 townhomes and that is… so that’s under SB330. How does that 6 affect the historic aspect of the building? My assumption is that somewhere later in the year 7 when the environmental review is being done. There will be a feasibility study for the historic 8 assets and is that changed at all by the application, the pre-application for the townhomes? 9 10 Ms. Tanner: SB330 does not exempt projects from a full environmental analysis that’s required 11 and so in this case with the historic resource the environmental analysis would be required 12 which would include the historic resource. So, there’s no exception to CEQA and to the… that 13 type of consideration. 14 15 Commissioner Summa: Ok, thanks and then well, I guess that’s all I need to ask now because 16 we’re going to discuss later. 17 18 Ms. Tanner: Ok, thank you. 19 20 Chair Templeton: Thank you, Commissioner Summa. Commissioner Hechtman. 21 22 Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. So, when we met on this in April and we were reviewing 23 the initial three alternatives, which incidentally I did take some time comparing those three to 24 the three that are presented with this Staff report, and there is a tremendous amount of I 25 would call it progress and change when you compare those two sets and that’s something that 26 we can dive into later. But what I wanted to know is in April I remember when we met the 27 Working Group who has really done as you mentioned Ms. Tanner a tremendous amount of 28 work, 17 meetings. They had just come up with an alternative and I think it was just before our 29 meeting and so one of the things that was mentioned in the meeting is we really haven’t even 30 really had a chance to look at that. So, I can’t remember if it was this morning or maybe it was 31 yesterday, we were forwarded what I’m going to guess is an updated version from the… some 32 members of the Working Group. It’s not clear to me that it’s all of them. I think it’s called 33 Alternative M, like Mary and so we’ve had the Staff presentation on the three alternatives 34 coming from Staff, and I was hoping that there might be… and I don’t know if it's planned as 35 part of the public comment, or I don’t know if Commissioner Summa who’s our liaison of that 36 Committee. I’m hoping somebody will take a little bit of time and walk us through Alternative 37 M so that we can get our arms around that the same way I feel I have with the three 38 alternatives that are in the Staff Report. Is that part of the planned process? 39 40 Page 32 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Ms. Tanner: That is not part of the planning process. We had a number of alternatives 1 developed by the Working Group so if we were to talk about Alternative M we would need to 2 talk about I think it’s Alternatives maybe D through M. So, there would be a number so I think 3 that… while that was developed by two members of the Working Group and one member of 4 the public. It is not represented by the entire Working Group. 5 6 Commissioner Hechtman: And there is no Alternative D through M that is representative of the 7 [unintelligible](interrupted) 8 9 Ms. Tanner: What we’ve done over the summer is work with the Working Group to understand 10 areas of consensus and areas where there’s no consensus. Alternative One does reflect 11 retention of the building which was a key part of Alternative M. What it does not reflect is 12 eminent domain of that building by the City, to purchase it and turn it into affordable housing. 13 It does not also reflect, and I think none of the alternatives do, a significant new source of 14 funding for affordable housing. If the Commission wanted we could talk about sources for 15 affordable housing. Does the City want to do a bond? Does the City want to do a Tax Measure 16 to generate funds to purchase any land, including that building, and turn it into affordable 17 housing? This plan and none of them do conceive of that, but the Alternative One does retain 18 the building and only allows two uses. It’s current existing use or adaptive result of the building 19 into affordable housing or into multi-family housing so that’s a key part of it. 20 21 That alternative also looked at really focusing on the existing housing opportunity sites as sites 22 turn over for redevelopment. And so those are included in all of these alternatives but also 23 obviously other sites are also included for development. So, I think some of the key features, 24 perhaps not all of Alternative M are in one of the alternatives, but again we hope that Working 25 Group members find a little bit of their alternatives in all of them. No one person will probably 26 find all their preferences in any single alternative. 27 28 Commissioner Hechtman: [unintelligible – no audio] 29 30 Chair Templeton: Alright, thank you, Commissioner Hechtman. Commissioner Summa, I see 31 your hand raised. 32 33 Commissioner Summa: Only if somebody wants further explanation of Alternative M and why I 34 sent it to everyone today, but we… I don’t want to derail the public’s time either because I feel 35 like we’ll have time to discuss that later. 36 37 Chair Templeton: Exactly, I agree with you. Alright, I don’t see any more hands up for technical 38 questions. I had a couple of real quick ones. That spaces that we have for light industrial 39 Page 33 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. between Park Boulevard and the tracks. Is that something that you could consider to increase 1 the amount of parkland in that area instead of more housing or is housing a better use there? 2 3 Ms. Tanner: It certainly could be an area for parkland. I think part of it depends on how is the 4 parkland being obtained. So, any of the parkland that’s featured in green and even the idea that 5 a certain percentage of any parcel that is redeveloped would have some parkland dedicated. 6 Even if it’s just 5 percent like a pocket park or something is the idea that that parcel is being 7 redeveloped and some portion of that parcel is becoming parkland. So, could the entire area 8 become parkland? Sure, if w can get some money up to buy it and turn it into parks, but there 9 would likely be some development in concert with that becoming a parkland. So, maybe not all 10 of it but certainly some of it could. 11 12 Chair Templeton: Ok, that makes more sense. I appreciate that and then why was that 13 channelization of the creek done and do these two new concepts address those issues? I seem 14 to recall it’s some flood protection? 15 16 Ms. Tanner: Yeah, there’s certainly… in certainly part of the purpose… the creek’s purpose 17 going way back. It’s to catch water and get it to the ocean, but certainly part of the 18 improvements of the modern era are to try to prevent flooding. And even in 1998, I believe 19 there was massive flooding and so a lot of the improvements really are for that which is why 20 the feasibility was needed to say like well if we’re going to have naturalization and also the 21 flood mitigation properties. How do we have those two things working together? So, that was… 22 that needed to be maintained for any of the alternatives for the creek. 23 24 Chair Templeton: That makes sense. Sorry, I have a bunch of questions about the creek so the 25 one that… well, do both them… you said they were near the Boulware Park. My kids played 26 there when they were growing up and they do like to run. Do you envision that the safety for 27 small kids playing at the park would be part of your improvement proposal as well? 28 29 Ms. Tanner: Certainly, it would be and I should say one of the benefits of either of the… any of 30 the concepts that are feasible would be allowing more access to the creek where people could 31 have walking paths, biking paths, get up near the water. As you know it is more seasonal as we 32 have in California and so it isn’t like a big gushing flowing river. So, certainly, we would want to 33 have some safety measures, but I think it would in some ways be much safer because there 34 would be more access and openness. Right now, there’s been some complaints of some crime, 35 it’s kind of out of the way. You know it can be (interrupted) 36 37 Chair Templeton: So, it’s an overall improvement? Ok. 38 39 Ms. Tanner: Yeah, yeah. 40 Page 34 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Templeton: Great. Two more questions. The Pepper Avenue, the homes on the Page Mill 2 side of Pepper Avenue that abut that little L shaped area of residential retail mixed-use. Just 3 you touched on it earlier and I wanted to make sure I understand it. So, the height limits that 4 are in this proposal are not a change from the current height limits for (interrupted) 5 6 Ms. Tanner: That is correct. They are not an increase or decrease in the current height limits. 7 8 Chair Templeton: Because that little niche of houses, the red… the R1 houses there looks 9 intimidatingly surrounded by other types of uses so I wanted to make sure that their needs 10 were addressed. Ok. 11 12 Great, ok and then last thing, I just wanted to agree with something that Commissioner Alcheck 13 mentioned. That when you do come back in January I would love to see these charts have like 14 in parenthesis beside the height, the approximate number of homes or people or whatever is 15 the right unit, but just so that we can start to understand where these qualities and that trade-16 off that might happen if certain parcels develop differently. That… if that’s possible. If you had 17 that number, that would be really cool to see it. 18 19 Ms. Tanner: That’s a great suggestion. We can certainly do that. 20 21 Chair Templeton: Alright, so Commissioners normally around 8 o’clock we do a pulse check and 22 see if we want to take a break. 23 24 Commissioner Alcheck: Are we going to… are we taking public comment? 25 26 Chair Templeton: We are taking public comment. That’s what I was getting to. Hold your horses 27 there. Since we’re about to enter into what looks like potentially 30 to 45-minutes of public 28 comment. Do we want to take a break or just head right in and then Commissioners can drop in 29 and out if you need to go refill your water or whatever? 5-minute break? I see several nodding 30 your heads for that. Ok, we are going to start whether everybody’s back or not so I hope you 31 can really keep it tight. So, 7:46? See you then, thank you. 32 33 [The Commission took a 5-minute break] 34 35 Chair Templeton: Alright, thank you Commissioner Summa for returning in a timely fashion. I 36 appreciate that. If other Commissioners are back, please turn on your video so that we can see 37 that you’re here and once we have a quorum we will resume the meeting. 38 39 Page 35 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Summa: Are we… Chair Templeton, after we take public comment are we going 1 to have some discussion or just continue the meeting at that point? 2 3 Chair Templeton: I think we should do a check-in and see because we now have 15 4 commenters, but I think we should at least have one round because we’ll want to give some 5 feedback to Staff and of course well need to make a motion to continue at some point. Ok, 6 thanks. 7 8 Chair Templeton: Thank you. Oh, the hands are raising. Ok, let’s see, there’s Commissioner 9 Riggs. Vice-Chair Roohparvar, Commissioner Lauing, are you guys back yet? Commissioner 10 Alcheck? Alright. Let’s get one more and then we’ll get started. Ok, I think we are ready, to 11 begin with, public comments and I’ll just repeat what I said as we were heading to our quick 12 break. Many of you are affiliated with the North Ventura Coordinated Area Plan Working Group 13 and if you want to say so at the beginning. Not all of our Commissioners necessarily won’t 14 recognize the names of and associate with the group… the formal group itself. So, if you want 15 to disclose that, that would be super helpful to understand your perspective and if you have 16 some other affiliations like property owner, homeowner, a renter, Ventura resident, any other 17 kind of thing like that, you can share that as well. It’s certainly helpful to understand the 18 context of your comments, of course, that’s always optional. So, let’s get started. Mr. Nguyen, 19 are you available? 20 21 Mr. Vinhloc Nguyen, Admin Associate III: Yes. It looks like so far, we have 18 raised hands, and 22 as soon as the timer… there it is. Ok, so our first speaker will be Rebecca Sanders. 23 24 Ms. Rebecca Sanders: Oh wow, this is an honor. So, I’m Rebecca Sanders, Becky to many of you 25 and I live in Ventura. I am involved in both the Ventura Neighborhood Association and the Palo 26 Alto Neighbors. An umbrella organization connecting neighborhood associations across the 27 City. I’m here to state for the record that both of these organizations favor creative solutions 28 and out of the box approaches to building as much housing as possible on the site, but still 29 providing adequate park and community amenities for these new residences. 30 31 Super concerns we have is that none of these alternatives have adequate parkland as called for 32 in our Comp Plan. It’s been pointed out even by Rachael. Thank you, Ms. Tanner, so again 33 Ventura will be stiffed on parks. Really tired of that. Even with the addition of Boulware, thank 34 you so much, we are still lagging for parks so that’s a real problem for us with all three of the 35 alternatives. 36 37 And there’s been no real transportation analysis. All three alternatives promote cut-through 38 traffic by having Portage go all the way to Park now instead of creating a bikeable and walkable 39 community. That is one thing that the entire Working Group agreed on. None of these plans 40 Page 36 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. encourage drivers to do something other than just zig-zag and zip along the streets of Ventura. 1 So, I’m bummed out about that. 2 3 And plus, I am one of the geniuses behind Alternative M. I take credit along with Keith and 4 Terry. You know housing for people that need it the most, housing that is not being built. We’re 5 ahead in the game of luxury and at market-rate but we’re way behind the eight ball and missing 6 middle BMR truly affordable. So, yeah, PAN specifically endorsed Alternative M which was 7 brought forward by Working Group members and me, but it never seriously got looked at. It 8 doesn’t pencil out. Building housing without a profit motive never pencils out. Building a… so 9 how can it? So, that’s why we recommend bolds strokes to build the housing we want there. 10 Let’s do a partnership, let’s get into the business of building housing as a community. Other 11 Cities do it. 12 13 Now I know many of us are panicking about the pandemic, but we do need a long-range plan. 14 We… why would give up and just take the path of least resistance when we have this amazing 15 opportunity and so housing has to cancel office space. I really hope you will see that. 16 17 Also, many of us are panic about RHNA, which as you all know is way out of proportion this 18 cycle to what Palo Alto can even reasonably sustain. Former Council Member Greg Schmidt did 19 a ton of research, communicated with City Council, RHNA process is suspect and the RHNA 20 numbers have been arrived at using a faulty methodology. So, they may well change and so 21 density on El Camino Real is one thing but massive massing drive toward Park is a real concern 22 for me. I would like for Ventura to have parody with other neighborhoods so please just don’t 23 oh my gosh, drop a large spaceship in the middle of North Ventura. 24 25 And then also I’m super bummed out about the proposed Sobrato and the other project being 26 built in the Plan B Area Plan Area which completely just throws everything… a monkey wrench 27 so thanks so much, everybody. 28 29 Mr. Nguyen: Thank you Rebecca for joining us tonight. Our next speaker is Waldek. Waldek if 30 you’re there, can you please unmute yourself? 31 32 Mr. Waldek Kaczmarski: Hi. So, I’m a member of the Working Group. I also live across the street 33 on the numbered avenue so I am facing the future development and I’m very disappointed with 34 the newest development with 200 Portage. And that’s why I would not comment on other 35 aspects of this plan except for the things that apparently the City can’t control which is streets 36 and dedicated parkland. 37 38 So, two things, the Ventura Neighborhood was originally industrial area and therefore it’s 39 lacking public infrastructure that historically was provided to other neighborhoods. And I 40 Page 37 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. believe that this thing should be fixed if possible. If we could afford this thing in the past, then 1 we should be able to afford this thing now and bring Ventura to pair with the rest of Palo Alto. 2 And therefore, I am actually surprised that we did not reach the guidance as far as the park 3 averages for all neighborhoods. The neighborhoods should not be… the park averages should 4 not be proportional to the area. It should be proportional to the number of the residences. We 5 want a lot of people to live here so we should provide them with the parkways. 6 7 The other aspect is that Park Boulevard, it’s my personal preference so I believe that there was 8 quite consensus in the Working Group that the Park Boulevard should be pedestrian and bicycle 9 spine for the whole Ventura Neighborhood. Connecting Ventura to California Avenue and that 10 to become a really nice through boulevard. Therefore, any car approaches to that street should 11 be limited and the street should be widened as far as the pedestrian walkways and should be 12 surrounded by the landscape created really like a boulevard. Thank you. 13 14 Mr. Nguyen: Thank you for joining us tonight. Our next speaker is Gail Price. 15 16 Ms. Gail Price: Good evening. Dear Chair Templeton and PTC Commissioners, my name is Gail 17 Price, I’m Co-Chair of the Working Group, but I’m here tonight speaking as Board President of 18 Palo Alto Forward and a Barron Park resident. 19 20 I urge you to fully explore and expand Alternative Three. Both the Staff Report and the findings 21 of the Strategic Economics Financial Feasibility Study recognize that Alternative Three, housing 22 intensity and variety, combined with mixed-uses including office uses, and community benefits 23 is the most economically feasible. 24 25 The Working Group, Staff, and community have worked on this subject area for over 2-years. 26 The ultimate result of this effort are already being compromised by the piece mill development 27 proposals. It’s clear that the Portage pre-ap proposal is a keystone property in the study area 28 and impacts the TIRE boundary area and definitely impacts the potential to develop housing. 29 30 Alternative Three captures the potential and great benefits for the Ventura/ California Avenue 31 area that could be achieved as a more inclusive, thriving, and vibrant part of Palo Alto. The 32 Working Group has revisited circulation, land use, density, and development standards many 33 times, but little will be accomplished until a bolder and more ambitious alternative or 34 alternatives are chosen. To actualize the vision, serious changes to development standards 35 including density, parking, and height limits are necessary to enable the production of housing 36 that can be built. We are in a housing crisis and it remains very critical. 37 38 Intensification of the NVCAP with a planned horizon of 5 to 20-years is critical to Palo Alto 39 demonstrating our willingness to meet both RHNA Regional Housing Goals and many 40 Page 38 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. community benefits that could accrue. I encourage you to look at this seriously and to be open-1 minded as you provide policy guidance to the City Council. 2 3 We also support all of the policy strategies identified and believe further ones are necessary to 4 examine new funding sources and negotiations and strategies that have been used successfully 5 with developers to get outcomes the community needs and wants. 6 7 Thank you very much and just a reminder that the feasibility of Alternative Three when it was 8 reviewed also is directly aligned with the impacts and benefits identified in the Comprehensive 9 Plan. Basically, Alternative Three, I believe should be expanded and is aligned with pre-existing 10 policies, initiatives, and practices in the City of Palo Alto. Thank you very much. 11 12 Mr. Nguyen: Thank you for your comments. Our next speaker is Kirsten Flynn. Kirsten, if you’re 13 there, please unmute yourself. 14 15 Ms. Kirsten Flynn: I had to get my cursor over there. Ok, I’m Kirsten Flynn. It’s been a privilege 16 to be selected and an honor to serve on NVCAP Working Group. Over the 2 ½-years, I have 17 learned so much, listened so much, read so much, watched more City Planning videos than I 18 ever thought I would in my life. I did this because I want to help create a plan that helps the 19 neighborhood I love, the region I love and the City where I have lived my whole life and where I 20 and 11 members of my family live and work, and where I run my small business. 21 22 The Working Group has engaged in a respectful process and has come to hard thought 23 consensus embodied in the three plans you see before you. I would like to speak to three of the 24 top priorities that emerged during our long process for your consideration. 25 26 First of all, we are cognizant that these plans might have more height and density than some 27 members of our community are happy with. But one idea that came through very clearly from 28 our outreach and from within our group was that are our neighbors put a very high value on 29 affordable housing. Our neighborhood for years has been the most affordable in Palo Alto. Our 30 neighbors understand what it is like to scrape to make rents so you can stay in a town where 31 your children will get a good education or to save hard to buy a house that is near your family. 32 They’re willing to put up with some increased height and some increased traffic to help Palo 33 Alto to get to its RHNA targets, but only if it leads to truly affordable housing and does not 34 exacerbate our jobs/housing imbalance. 35 36 Secondly, our neighborhood has traditionally been under-resourced. It is bound on three sides 37 by railroad tracks, El Camino Real and Page Mill. So, it is a challenge to walk to anything, but it 38 does not have viable retail, a neighborhood school, or enough parkland. This has to change. 39 This is a social equity issue. You cannot expect the most affordable neighborhood in our City to 40 Page 39 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. absorb the traffic and buildings that exceed height limits in order to achieve the City’s housing 1 units’ goals without providing mitigation and a high quality of neighborhood life. Parks are 2 important to that quality of life and so is the place making allowed by preserving historical 3 structures as in Plan Two, which preserves the monitor roofs section of the historic building. 4 5 Finally, we must keep the bike boulevard safe as we increase density in our neighborhood. This 6 was a top priority that we heard over and over again as we deliberated and got feedback from 7 the public meetings. Many moved to the neighborhood partly so that they could access a 8 bicycle commute. In order to create a low carbon neighborhood bikes, need to be a safe means 9 of transportation. This is especially true in the last mile of commute from Cal Avenue Train 10 Station to a workplace. 11 12 So, to summarize, important priorities are affordable housing, not just low-density market-rate 13 housing, parks, and other amenities, and keep our bike boulevard safe. We respectfully ask that 14 you consider these as top priorities as you evaluate these plans. 15 16 Mr. Nguyen: Thank you for your comments. Our next speaker is Angela Dellaporta. 17 18 Ms. Angela Dellaporta: [note – audio cut in mid-sentence] a residence of and a homeowner in 19 Ventura Neighborhood and I’m a member of the NVCAP Working Group. First, I want to thank 20 City Staff for their hard work, patience, and expertise in preparing this report and in attempting 21 to include all the wishes and opinions of the Working Group which was no easy task. The 22 alternatives in the report to reflect many of the Working Group’s recommendations for the 23 NVCAP area. However, I’d like to reiterate and highlight two issues that Ms. Tanner has 24 mentioned that are most important to the Working Group and to local residents. 25 26 First, affordable and middle-income housing is very important to everyone in the Working 27 Group. The Working Group with the help of City Staff compiled a document detailing a variety 28 of ways in addition to density bonuses through which more affordable housing could be 29 achieved. And I would like to see that document as well as the need for affordable housing and 30 middle-income housing predominately featured in the alternative that is eventually presented 31 to the City Council. 32 33 Second, park spaces as everyone has been mentioning. Palo Alto Comprehensive Plan and its 34 Park’s Master Plan both wisely require 4-acres of park space for every 1,000 residents. At this 35 time Palo Alto, unfortunately, falls far short of this goal at I think only about 2.7-acres per 1,000 36 residents where it should be 4. Both San Francisco and Mountain View have far more park 37 space per resident than Palo Alto currently has. Because of the concern that property owners 38 would not be satisfied with the financial profitability of park space, these alternatives presented 39 tonight provide only 1-acre to at most 1.5-acres of park space per 1,00 residents. That ratio for 40 Page 40 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. the NVCAP area would push Palo Alto’s park space ratio even lower than it already is. In high-1 density areas such as these recommended in these alternatives, park space is even more 2 important than in neighborhoods where residents already have their own tree-filled back yards. 3 To crowd 3,000 people into the NVCAP area and not provide plenty of park space, it seems to 4 me would simply be wrong. 5 6 I’m sure that we all want Palo Alto to be a City that makes room for residence with a variety of 7 income levels and for plenty of public park space. I’m also confident that the City can figure out 8 how to do this. The alternative which might please developers, but no one else, would be a 9 crowded area of expensive condos with apostasy of green space. I think Palo Alto is better than 10 that. Thank you. 11 12 Mr. Nguyen: Thank you for your comments. Our next speaker is John Wizard. 13 14 Mr. John Wizard: Hello. Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to address the 15 Commission. My name is John Wizard. I’m a representative of VMB Law, a 501C3 non-profit 16 corporation and our mission is to increase the accessibility and the affordability of housing in 17 California. 18 19 I’d like to thank Assistant Planning Director Tanner for her comments earlier related to 20 opportunity sites listed in the Housing Site inventory and the need to up zone them to 21 accommodate the RHNA. And also, her acknowledgment of the opportunity to remove those 22 opportunity sites and how that would necessitate a rezoning to satisfy the no-net loss rule or 23 law rather in California. 24 25 I prepared a letter that I sent into the Commission earlier but I’ll read now for the benefit of the 26 other members attending… the members of the public attending. Yimby Law supports, or I’m 27 sorry, submits this letter to inform you that the City of Palo Alto has an obligation to abide by all 28 relevant state housing laws and evaluate the above-referenced planning area. That being the 29 NVCAP. California Government Code § 65583.2, Section (c), Section (3), Section (B), Section (iii) 30 requires the City to maintain an inventory of land suitable for residential development during a 31 given planning period and that those identified sites be sufficient to provide for the 32 jurisdiction’s share of the regional housing need for all income levels. Furthermore, in order for 33 sites identified in this inventory to be reused during multiple planning periods or Housing 34 Elements, the City must not only zone these sites for a minimum of 20 units per acre but also 35 provide for residential use by right so long as 20% of the proposed housing is for low-income 36 households. If the current zoning for these sites does not conform to these provisions of the 37 Government Code, the city must develop and implement policies and programs with specific 38 tasks to be completed in no more than two years that will achieve compliance. 39 40 Page 41 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Given the Sixth Cycle of RHNA coupled with the City’s trend in permits and expected yield for 1 the identified sites on the Housing Inventory, the Yimby Law encourages the city to upzone all 2 of the sites in the NVCAP to better accommodate a diverse range of housing types and income 3 levels. In addition to the requirement to affirmatively further fair housing, pursuant to AB 686 4 by Member Santiago, preventing the continued gentrification of this area and the displacement 5 of BIPOC residents it’s of the utmost importance that the City not locate all of the low-income 6 housing on a site with groundwater contamination and that the City’s 10,058 new housing units 7 as identified through the RHNA would not be focused in this area but instead spread out over 8 higher amenity area such as the downtown. Thank you very much for the opportunity to 9 address you this evening and I hope that the Commission will pursue an even greater quality of 10 housing and amenities for this region so as not to force it into other parts of the community 11 where members may not want it. Thanks again. 12 13 Ms. Nguyen: Thank you for your comments. Our next speaker is Cedric. 14 15 Mr. Cedric: Hello. I’m Cedric. A long time… born and bred in Palo Alto. I live in Barron Park. So, 16 first on creek naturalization, I support Option Three with maximum width and naturalization. 17 This eats into private property. Private property was the first to eat into the natural creek 18 channel for private gain without any consideration for the impacts on the natural ecosystem. 19 The full naturalization does the most to restore the balance and provide the best parklike 20 experience for this valuable natural resource. Development of adjacent parcels will require 21 open space contributions so we can just require them to go into the creek for essential open 22 space benefit rather than a bunch of less useful micro parks. Some tell you that it’s too 23 expensive, but if we can find money to build a $37 million parking garage and $5 million train 24 grade separations. Then we can certainly find money to naturalize the creek. A naturalized 25 creek is a beneficial addition to Boulware Park as exemplified by the popularity of the creek 26 access in Boul Park. Real estate acquisition cost were included based on recent assessments of 27 roughly $4 million an acre and the feasible naturalization option of those which would not 28 cause flooding. 29 30 On transportation, I urge the City to work with Caltrans to add a dedicated right turn lane from 31 northbound El Camino Real to eastbound Page Mill. This would dramatically reduce cut-through 32 traffic through the neighborhoods and increase bike safety on Park Boulevard. I support the 33 one-way converses of Pepper and Olive to support this change. Also, we should not have a 34 through car traffic in the heart of the Fry’s area and instead focus on pedestrian and bike 35 spaces. 36 37 In regarding to building forms and density. Throughout this process, I have advocated for 38 rooftop gardens and stepped back building’s forms. Yet the plan essentially does not mention 39 these typologies. Stepping back every floor or every other floor would maintain pedestrian 40 Page 42 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. scale and allow higher densities without oppressive. This form could be incentivized by zoning 1 and ordinances. The benefits of rooftop gardens including on the stepped back levels and on 2 large balconies would be to provide residents access to private open space. Satisfying the need, 3 the human right of access to nature. It’s more attractive to the residents and to the public. It’s 4 more supportive of the natural environment by providing from a bird’s eye view gardens 5 instead of blank roofs. The extended quarantine highlights the need for access to private space. 6 Particularly for our apartment dwellers and places where buildings have been built with roof 7 gardens has spurred other developers nearby to mimic this pattern because they were so 8 popular with residents of those buildings. 9 10 In terms of historic, I would like to preserve the monitor rood section. There was no discussion 11 in the plan of community facilities of what could be included and where, but in early 12 community meetings there was a lot of support for things like senior centers, maker spaces, 13 etc. 14 15 Finally, message to the clerk, I would encourage you to announce the next two speakers when 16 naming the next to speak so that people know that their turn to speak is coming up soon. Thank 17 you very much. 18 19 Ms. Nguyen: Thank you Cedric for your comments. I think that is a great suggestion. Our next 20 three speakers will be Chris Colohan followed by Rebecca Eisenberg and then followed by Lund. 21 22 Mr. Chris Colohan: Hi, my name is Chris Colohan, and I’m a homeowner in the Community 23 Center Neighborhood and I am totally new to this whole process. And so, I’m just attending 24 today's meeting because I’m curious and interested. And I’m blown away by the levels of 25 complexity that is going into this process and the amount of thought and effort that goes into 26 this and I really appreciate what I’m hearing tonight. It’s pretty amazing and like a lot of the 27 speakers, I want everything. I want us to have more housing, to have low density, to have high 28 density, and to have tall buildings and short buildings and everything. I want it all, but I can’t get 29 it so I just thought I’d tell you what my personal top priorities which is we should go big or go 30 home. I mean go big or build homes that is because quite frankly, we need to lower the cost of 31 housing somehow in the City and the only way that seems economically feasible to me is to 32 build more houses anyway we can and everywhere we can. Because that will get us to the point 33 where things are affordable for people to live here and I want my young friends to be able to 34 afford to live in the City. I want my kids to be able to afford to live in this City and to that, we 35 need to build more homes and so that’s really all I’ve got to say so I’ll just pass the baton on to 36 the next person. Thank you. 37 38 Ms. Nguyen: Thank you Chris for joining us tonight. Rebecca is our next speaker. 39 40 Page 43 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Ms. Eisenberg: Hi there. I am grateful to be able to speak. I’m speaking on behalf of the 8,000 1 Palo Alto residents who voted for me to be City Council Member last month. First, I insist that 2 you consider Alternative M. As Mr. Wizard earlier said, the RHNA numbers are not optional. It’s 3 the law. The state is just one step away from imposing personal liability for local officials who 4 violate this law. Do you want to risk that because that is what you continue to do, violate the 5 law, each time you prioritize billionaire commercial developers and private schools over legal 6 compliance and housing? 7 8 North Ventura use to be the most diverse neighborhood in Palo Alto before John Sobrato family 9 bought up 50 residential acres, including many homes from African American families and he 10 and his family now seek to impose this exploitative property agenda on the area. You don’t get 11 to be worth $10 billion by providing low-income housing. We need a new way to fund 12 affordable housing and Alternative M proposed quite a few ones that are at least worth 13 investigating. Yet somehow Commissioner Alcheck lobbies for Mr. Sobrato and Ms. Tanner 14 refuses to call him by name. This is public record. It’s John Sobrato who bought 50 residential 15 acres in Ventura, North Ventura. 16 17 Now I’m very grateful to Chair Templeton who asks for facts and numbers and not just these 18 generalities. I have a degree in math so here I am giving you a few. First of all, Commissioner 19 Lauing was correct when he said that the numbers about employees per square foot… feet is 20 off. And I know because I actually handled the building and moving into facilities for several 21 high-tech companies when I was their general counsel and here’s the actual rule of thumb. 22 Each employee needs only 100-square feet to qualify for OSHA compliance. That is what most 23 technology companies believe. Stop asking the developers what they think. Ask around. You’re 24 data’s bad. Once… 100… one employee per 100-square feet means that 100,000-square feet 25 office development creates 1,000 jobs. 1,000 jobs while 100,000-square feet of homes 26 development creates 50, 2,000-square foot homes, or 100, 1,000-square foot homes which is 27 pretty small for that neighborhood. So, each 100,000-square feet of office space, are you going 28 to approve and designate 1,000 homes? Somehow, I doubt it. That will put you even further 29 into breach of the law. Build homes, not office space. They don’t even pay taxes. Thank you. 30 31 Mr. Nguyen: Thank you for your comments. Our next three speakers will be Lund followed by 32 Robert Chun followed by David Meyer. So, up next is Lund. 33 34 Mr. Lund Smith: Thank you. This is Lund Smith. I am one of the NVCAP members and I just 35 wanted to start off by thanking Staff and the other group members. As it’s been mentioned 36 we’ve had almost 20 meetings and it’s been a lot of work and there’s been a lot of thought and 37 effort put in by Staff, by the working members, also by consultants and it’s been a great 38 opportunity to be part of it. 39 40 Page 44 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. I feel like the… really one of the main reasons why I joined the group, to begin with, and I 1 should also add that I’m one of the two developers that’s part of the group. And I’ve viewed 2 this… I’ve really viewed this area as a huge opportunity for housing and I feel like the 3 alternatives that are before you tonight, Alternative One, Two, and Three. They do go part of 4 the way towards offering more housing but I also tend to agree with what Gail Price mentioned. 5 That they’re… Alternative Three has the most dense housing and provide opportunities but it’s 6 also… anyways, I feel like there is some left on the table with Alternative One and Two. Just 7 anyways, there obviously trade-offs in the variety of the alternatives and they’re trying… and 8 Staff did a great job trying to accommodate all of the different opinions of all the Working 9 Group members. But anyway, just overall comment I think housing, like as has been said 10 tonight is a huge priority for the area. 11 12 I wanted to focus in on specifically Olive Avenue. We have been… I represent ownership that 13 owns nine homes on Olive. In the three alternatives, there’s three different designations I 14 wanted to kind of bring to Staff’s attention and also to the Commission. So, in Alternative One, 15 Olive Avenue is shown as R2. It’s important to note that R2… we have substandard lot sizes on 16 Olive and the way the R2 is currently written. Any lot size that is less than 7,500-square feet can 17 actually only accommodate one house. So, I think it’s important to note the general impact for 18 our specific sites is that that would not increase the density at all and to be honest, R1 with the 19 current state law with ADUs and JADUs. We have looked at concepts for when we can 20 potentially put three units on one lot size and in Alternative One it actually would potentially 21 downsize the use of what we could right now so it would allow for potentially less housing. 22 Alternative Two and Three, although the concept is to allow duplexes, fourplexes, and even six 23 plexus if combining lots. I think that a lot of that depends on the details. Can we in fact merge 24 lots and get more units or not? So, I just wanted to bring to the Commission’s attention and 25 Staff’s attention that actually leaving the zoning at R1 may actually result in more units being 26 built on those sites. Thank you. 27 28 Mr. Nguyen: Thank you for your comments. Our next speaker is Robert. 29 30 Mr. Robert Chun: Thank you very much. My name’s Robert Chun. I’m a graduate student at 31 Stanford. This is my 7th year living or working in Palo Alto area. First, I want to echo the 32 comments other folks had made. Thank you to the planning Staff, thank you to the Commission 33 Members, the Working Group Members for the hard work on the NVCAP proposal. It really 34 shows as a renter, as a millennial, I think this is a really, really exciting opportunity if we can get 35 NVCAP right. It’s a huge step towards a more affordable, walkable, welcoming Palo Alto. 36 37 So, my comment tonight is pretty simple and it echoes what others have said. I would really ask 38 that Alternative Three really be used as the baseline scenario and that other scenarios build and 39 expand on it. In my view, we really need this proposal to reflect the urgency of our housing 40 Page 45 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. crisis. Especially given Palo Alto’s new RHNA goals and I’ll just say, I find it a little disappointing 1 when two of the three alternatives presented in the report, Alternative One and Alternative 2 Two, are scenarios that independent experts have concluded to be financially unworkable. I 3 mean it sounds obvious but it’s true, right? Like a home’s not going to help anybody if it only 4 exists on paper. Palo Alto families need real homes in transit-rich, walkable neighborhoods, and 5 right now only Alternative Three is even coming close to that goal. 6 7 So, I’ll just end by saying are we serious about making sure Palo Alto is affordable? Are we 8 serious about letting teachers, firefighters, police officers live in the communities that they 9 serve? If so, let’s make sure the NVCAP is aligned with that vision. Let’s only proceed with 10 scenarios that enable financially viable development and let’s build and expand on Alternative 11 Three so the proposal reflects the urgency of the housing crisis. Thank you very much and I 12 yield the remainder of my time. 13 14 Mr. Nguyen: Thank you for your comments. Our next speaker is David. 15 16 Mr. David Meyers: Thanks very much. My name is David Meyer. I represent Silicon Valley at 17 Home which is an affordable housing advocacy organization that works across Santa Clara 18 County. Also, in the before times before COVID, I use to bike pretty much all the time through… 19 directly through Ventura Neighborhood on the way to see my wife at Stanford. Something I 20 obviously don’t do much of anymore. 21 22 I really appreciated the work Staff has done to get us to this point and the work of the Working 23 Group Members who’ve really dedicated a lot of time to this process. And at the end of the day, 24 the goal of a planning process like this is to find the right balance of incentives and guidelines 25 that are going to enable successful redevelopment that are meetings the community’s needs 26 and goals. And I think it’s just clear that the North Ventura area is an important opportunity for 27 the City of Palo Alto to create new housing opportunities for people of all incomes. It’s near 28 transit, Caltrain, it’s near existing shops and restaurants along Cal Avenue, it’s in the center of 29 really one of the region's largest jobs centers. So, SV to Home really urges the City of Palo Alto 30 to study at a minimum Staff Alternative Number Three and actually consider opportunities to 31 increase the amount of housing beyond what Alternative Number Three even envisions. 32 33 As… Alternative Three currently envisions… it’s creating the most new housing, it’s creating the 34 most opportunities for deed-restricted affordable housing and it’s also resulting in the potential 35 for the largest amount of open space and resources for other key community benefits. All the 36 Staff analysis, all this work is clearly showing that a housing rich vision, mixed-use vision like 37 Alternative Three is key to achieving all these different housing goals the City has. 38 39 Page 46 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. We know kind of three key points, right? More housing is leading to more community benefits. 1 There’s that relationship between the benefits we can achieve and our decisions to provide 2 incentives for more housing that are going to result in more fees that are going to help us pay 3 for the daylight at Matadero Creek. They’re going to help us pay for deed-restricted affordable 4 housing. They’re going to help us pay for parkland. Also, as many people have mentioned, more 5 housing… this Alternative Three is associated with greater feasibility. We can create a plan of 6 whatever we want, but if developers don’t have any incentives to redevelop in the way we 7 want. We’re not going to get those fees. We’re not going to get any parks. We’re not going to 8 get any affordable housing. We really want to advance a plan that’s actually going to result in 9 the vision that we’re discussing here. And also, as some people have mentioned here already, 10 more housing is going to give us greater flexibility for the City of Palo Alto to meet its state 11 housing requirements under RHNA. We’re not proposing dumping all these requirements into 12 North Ventura. That’s certainly not something that we want to do, but at the end of the day, 13 going bolder is going to give the City more flexibility down the line. 14 15 So, I’m so glad to hear all the support in the community for affordable housing, but the City 16 wants to really figure out how to get more affordable housing. You’re going to have to raise 17 money. We’re going to have to plan bolder. If the City wants to get to 20 percent affordability 18 or wants to get more standalone affordable housing which is something we certainly support. 19 We’re going to have to give more incentives. We’re going to have to allow more density. We 20 have to be bold or else it’s just not going to happen so thank you. 21 22 Mr. Nguyen: Thank you for your comments. Our next three speakers will be Kevin Ma followed 23 by Kelsey Banes and then followed by Jeff. So, up first is Kevin Ma. 24 25 Mr. Kevin Ma: Good evening PTC Members. My name is Kevin Ma and I am a renter in the 26 Ventura Neighborhood. I support Staff and the NVCAP and with all the work they have done 27 with this effort. I will note that of all the efforts we’re going to do, at the end of the day it really 28 depends on it getting done which means there needs to be financial incentives to happen 29 because we can make plans all we want, but if there’s no money and there’s no pressure on it. 30 It’s just going to end up like a [unintelligible] like the Bascom Plan where a lot of good projects, 31 none of them offered because we know that the City is going to face a lot of questions over 32 how this COVID financial crisis is going to long given that our revenue for the City is relatively 33 low and we’re going to have massive projects like the grade separation project which has also 34 been taking quite a while to go through. So, we have to be making sure that we have the 35 finances to actually support things. 36 37 The neighborhood supports a Boulware Park that is integrated with nature, but we recognize 38 that the Alternative Three of Boulware Park is going to be expensive. And if we do not have a 39 funding source that is usually derived from Developer Fees it’s not going to be built. And I 40 Page 47 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. recognize that there’s some questions over the transportation impacts. We also have to remind 1 ourselves that this is within walking distance of a Caltrain station. There’s only two Caltrain 2 stations and Caltrain is going to be much more faster given that Measure R passed and they’re 3 mentioning electrification and faster services to the point maybe like BART in the future. If so 4 it’s going to be a waste of… it’s a lost opportunity if we leave the area so close to transit so 5 underutilized because we recognize that transit is going to be necessary to address climate 6 change because land use is very much connected to climate change. And if we just leave it 7 alone and just continue sprawl because you know the people who work at your stores need to 8 find a place to live and if we find any place here. They’re going to find when somewhere else 9 that usually cheaper and usually cheaper means living in the whoowie [note – phonetics] and 10 that’s not something that anyone wants. 11 12 And we also need to recognize as an equity issue. There’s a lot of people in the City that work 13 here but can’t afford here. I’m a tech worker and I even have questions of whether I’m going to 14 be staying here long term until like the classic joke of oh, a [unintelligible] then you can afford a 15 decent condo for a family because you know everything else in this valley is so expensive. 16 [unintelligible] because of housing because if your caretakers can’t live here, well guess what, 17 you’re… the money you’re going to need to spend is going to be much higher. 18 19 And that… really… we also talk about percentages. Percentages don’t matter if the units don’t 20 get built. Renters need places, future neighbors need places, that’s why the City must focus on 21 doing the best it can to actually make this place affordable and livable for everyone. Rather 22 than lawyers and rich people. Thank you. 23 24 Mr. Nguyen: Thank you for your comments. Our next speaker is Kelsey. 25 26 Ms. Kelsey Banes: Thank you, Commissioners. My name is Kelsey Banes. I’m with Peninsula for 27 Everyone. I am a Palo Alto resident, former renter, currently dependent on my partner for my 28 housing but so I feel like a renter in spirit, but like many of the previous speakers before me. I 29 think this is a great opportunity for housing that serves all the residents of the community in 30 terms of providing housing for people across the lifespan of various incomes, various ability 31 levels. Like Kevin who just spoke before me, I am someone who is contemplating my future 32 being able to stay in this region. So, if we don’t take advantage of opportunities like this, it will 33 impact people like us who are trying to plan for being able to stay here. 34 35 So, given all that I support Option Three as a compromise but I do wish we had some higher 36 density options that had some more innovative approaches to things like parking. And while I 37 appreciate a lot of the positive comments about affordable housing, I think it is vital that we 38 consider feasibility if our concern is actually getting people into homes because people can’t 39 live in affordable housing that doesn’t get built. 40 Page 48 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 And I think also for the sake for our Housing Element, we also need to think about what is going 2 to be feasible to get built within individual housing cycles… sorry… because if the housing can’t 3 get developed by 2030. We really can’t include it in our next Housing Element as an opportunity 4 site and I do think it is possible that our RHNA numbers may change, but I think we can only 5 expect them to go up. It is reasonable to expect that ABAG might allocate some of the 6 unincorporated Santa Clara County allocations to Palo Alto as a City within their sphere of 7 influence. So, I don’t think we’re going to see these numbers go down. If anything, I think we’re 8 going to see them go up. 9 10 And then I just want to talk about density. One of the most important inputs to feasibility is 11 density and while density isn’t sufficient for affordability. It is absolutely required so it makes 12 me sad when I see that Alternative M says beautify, don’t densify because density allows for 13 more open space. And if we plan appropriately, density also can support a car independent 14 lifestyle and it can also be very pretty. So, yeah, I think embracing density is really important if 15 we want to actually achieve a vision of having inclusive housing. Thank you. 16 17 Mr. Nguyen: Thank you for your comments. Our next speaker is Jeff. 18 19 Mr. Jeff Levinsky: Good evening Commissioners and Staff. My name is Jeff Levinsky and I was a 20 renter in Ventura Neighborhood for years. I’ve walked every block and street in the North 21 Ventura area many, many times. I’ve attended NVCAP meetings and followed its progress. I 22 have to say unfortunately I feel all three alternatives before you don’t reflect our community 23 needs very well and will likely be rejected by the public. 24 25 I’d like to point to three problems. First, traffic reduction is a top City priority. Seven years ago, 26 a Traffic Study showed that a proposed expansion on the current Cloudera site and nearby 27 would create significant traffic impacts including for commuters on Oregon Express Way. That 28 project than did not go forward. The three NVCAP proposals from Staff seem likely to generate 29 even more traffic and yet there’s been no Traffic Study at all. It would have made more sense to 30 start with how much extra traffic the Ventura area and the City as a whole can tolerate and 31 then develop plans with that in mind. 32 33 The second problem is that these plans don’t preserve R1. The Staff proposals would rezone 34 single-family home parcels, likely forcing current residents to have to leave the neighborhood 35 and possibly our City. We heard tonight that City Staff is reaching out to landowners and having 36 a private meeting with them. I didn’t hear that they are offering residents of the area any kind 37 of similar privilege access. It’s unfair and it’s not consistent with our community values. 38 39 Page 49 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. And finally, a huge problem with these alternatives is that they’re ignoring true affordable 1 housing. Our RHNA targets require that most of the new housing that we build for affordable 2 housing, the… at the 80 percent AMI level or under, but the 15 percent inclusionary housing our 3 City requires only creates housing for people earning more than that. So, all three alternatives 4 for NVCAP may actually generate no housing whatsoever towards our largest ABAG goals. So, 5 we go through this 20-year process and end up totally missing the biggest target. 6 7 Worse the three alternatives up zone and does make land more expensive and harder to 8 purchase for true affordable housing and also parkland. Alternative M is the only one I’ve seen 9 where it addresses this 80 AMI issue and below. Yes, it costs money but it also proposes where 10 to get every dollar that’s needed. 11 12 So, summing up, I think the NVCAP process can be saved, but it needs to refocus. It needs to 13 look at our top community goals of traffic reduction, protecting neighborhoods, and creating 14 true affordable housing. Thank you. 15 16 Mr. Nguyen: Thank you for your comments. Our next three speakers will be David Adams 17 followed by Paul Bickmore and then followed by Terry Holzemer. Alright so up next is David. 18 19 Mr. David Adams: Good evening honorable Members of the Planning and Transportation 20 Commission. Yeah, I’m an independent owner on Olive Avenue. So, the Staff Packet does state 21 that the original… an original goal of the NVCAP was to minimize the displacement of existing 22 residents. At the combined NVCAP/City Council meeting, April the 17th 2019, Councilor DuBois 23 moved and Vice Mayor Fine at the time seconded to update the project direction of NVCAP to 24 include and I quote, preventing displacement of existing residents. Ok, preventing displacement 25 of existing residents. This motion passed unanimously. Additionally, at that same meeting 26 Councilor Cormack stated and I quote, I’m going to list a few things I really want to see in this. 27 What if we keep all of the single-family housing on Olive? 28 29 Ok, so I live in the NVCAP area and I’ve been following this process closely. I’ve attended all the 30 meetings and it’s become pretty clear that Staff have made no effort to follow that City Council 31 direction. As you can see from the fact that all three alternatives propose rezoning of Olive and 32 the consequential displacement of existing residents. 33 34 As a background, Olive Avenue has some of the most affordable single-family housing in Palo 35 Alto and Staff’s proposal to tear this housing down and replace with market-value… sorry, 36 market-rate housing is just extremely short-sided. It may make the housing numbers look 37 better but it’s basically gentrification. 38 39 Page 50 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. So, the cheapest housing that we’ve got is basically our existing housing. So, I urge the Council… 1 sorry the Commission to prevent Olive Avenue from being rezoned and hence save some of our 2 existing and most affordable housing. Thank you for your consideration. 3 4 Chair Templeton: Mr. Nguyen? 5 6 Mr. Nguyen: Yes. 7 8 Chair Templeton: I think we should take the remainder… the remaining five people who’ve 9 raised their hand in comments today and then go to the Commissioners. So, if there are people 10 who haven’t raised their hand yet, I’m going to ask you to wait until January. Thanks. 11 12 Mr. Nguyen: Ok. So, the last five speakers we have here are Paul Bickmore followed by Terry 13 Holzemer followed by Keith Rechdahl followed by Rohin G, and then Anita. So, up next is Paul, 14 and looks like Paul just lowered his hand. Paul, did you still want to speak? I will unmute you 15 now. 16 17 Mr. Paul Bickmore: Yeah, yeah, thank you. I hit that by mistake. I thought it was unmuting. 18 Yeah, I’d like to echo comments earlier that Alternative Three is a bare minimum and really 19 insufficient if we want to deal with our housing crisis. I’m a renter. In most places, I’d be doing 20 pretty well but now I’m getting squeezed just because of our refusal to build enough housing 21 and we’re going to have to catch up in the next few years by building a lot. And Alternative 22 Three really needs to be expanded upon in terms of housing density and that means that our 23 City is going to have to look different. And I think one of the other things that we’ve been 24 talking about is just the realistic things right now with the Coronavirus recession. We can make 25 things a lot more flexible I think if we got rid of the parking requirements. I don’t think there’s 26 really any excuse for parking requirements ever, but when you add more housing in as we need 27 to in this area. Parking requirements are just inviting more cars instead of housing. It’s just 28 inviting more pollution, inviting more machines that kill people and endanger pedestrians and 29 kids on the streets. So, parking requirements massively increase costs, and again, we need to 30 recognize that things are going to have to look different if we’re going to have to deal with our 31 housing crisis. So, one of… another way is replace the office in Alternative Three with more 32 housing in addition to increasing the density since we have a lot of jobs. Creating so many jobs 33 without the housing is why we’re in the problem that we’re in. 34 35 And again, with density, you cannot plan around cars. I saw them mentioning that in Traffic 36 Studies they’re considering using LOS as a metric. Well, LOS is a terrible metric. It’s completely 37 counterproductive and doesn’t take into induced demand. So, this… and VMT isn’t that much 38 better. Instead of the transportation… we need to be planning around pedestrians if we’re 39 Page 51 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. going to add this necessary density which again, is not sufficient even with Alternative Three. 1 So, more housing, less parking, and more walking. Thank you. 2 3 Mr. Nguyen: Thank you for your comments. Our next speaker is Terry. Terry, it looks like you’re 4 using an older version of Zoom so I actually can’t unmute you. Instead, I’m going to temporarily 5 promote you to panelist so you can turn on your microphone. 6 7 Mr. Terry Holzemer: Hello. Can you hear me? 8 9 Mr. Nguyen: Yes, we can hear you. Thank you. 10 11 Mr. Holzemer: Ok. As an NVCAP Working Group member for the past 2-years., I wanted to take 12 a moment. I think other people have said this already, but I want to thank Staff for their hard 13 work and efforts and all the reports that they’ve given us. And especially I want to say 14 something about my… the volunteers. The other participants in this group that have done so 15 much and have worked so hard and I have appreciated their efforts as well even though we 16 haven’t always agreed. 17 18 I personally over the last 2-years have taken this very seriously and with considerable thought. 19 And I come to speak to you tonight about two key points. The first point is about the unique 20 historical aspects of the Bay Side Cannery structure and the second one is a request to seriously 21 examine and take your time thinking about Alterative M. Which was really constructed by 22 Working Group Members for the benefit of our entire community. 23 24 Overlooking… you know more than anything else, the historical aspects are overlooked and I 25 hate to say that. I’m a history teacher myself. I teach and I think that today’s society of Silicon 26 chips and smartphones doesn’t realize that over 100-years ago this valley was known as the 27 Valley of Hearts Delight. It was one of the most important, if not the most important, fruits and 28 vegetable growing areas in the world. Not just in the United States but in the world. Part of that 29 was the Cannery business of course of which Palo Alto and the Bay Side Cannery, which was 30 established by Thomas Foon Choo who is likely California’s first significant Chinese American 31 entrepreneur, and that grew into one of the largest cannery operations in the entire world. The 32 third largest and it started in 1911. 33 34 Beyond what Mr. Choo accomplished, however, is what this site represents historically to the 35 community. It is not just an old industrial building. It is one of the last of its kind in this entire 36 State of California. It’s unique and clearly one of the last. It’s worth saving and adaptively 37 reusing which brings me of course to Alternative M. 38 39 Page 52 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Alternative M is a serious attempt by several Working Group members, myself included, who 1 have tried to look at this area and figure out how could we adaptively reuse a historic building 2 but still achieve many of the City’s own goals; which includes, of course, our need for below-3 market-rate housing. I seriously hope the City… I know my time is up, but I hope that you will 4 take your time to look at Alternative M and study it and see if it’s truly feasible because our 5 group did not. Thank you. 6 7 Mr. Nguyen: Thank you Terry for your comments. Our next speaker is Keith. 8 9 Mr. Keith Reckdahl: Hello. I’m a working member, member of the NVCAP and I think these 10 alternatives, unfortunately, all fall short in some areas that were important to the Working 11 Group. I’ll talk about two of these, parks and affordable housing. 12 13 Parks are an important part of life in Palo Alto and this really is an equity issue. Parks are just 14 not important in North Palo Alto, they’re important of all Palo Alto. In fact, they’ll be even more 15 important in North Ventura where much of the new housing will be high density without yards. 16 And for those residents, many traditional backyard activities will become park activities. The 17 Working Group doesn’t believe that developers necessarily pay for all the parkland. The City 18 must be the one to take the lead in planning the parkland. You know back in the days when 19 Palo Alto was formed, land still wasn’t free, but the community joined together and found 20 money and bought the land and built our parks. Today, the City must show initiative, do the 21 planning, and find the money to build parks in North Ventura. 22 23 Another issue important to the Working Group is affordable housing and these alternatives do 24 nothing for the lowest two housing categories. The alternatives 15 percent inclusionary units 25 will be built at 120 percent AMI. Will there be no units in the 50 percent and 80 percent 26 categories? Palo Alto is building almost no units in these bottom two categories and none of 27 these alternatives change this. The alternatives bonus for workforce housing is great, but 28 workforce housing is not a replacement for BMR housing. And once again, the Working Group 29 doesn’t believe that the developer should necessarily pay for all of the affordable housing. The 30 City must take the lead to ensure that the area supports housing across the income spectrum. It 31 won’t be cheap, but it is feasible and it’s worth our money. 32 33 So, both parks and affordable housing are important to the working group and I just wish the 34 alternatives better reflected this. Thank you. 35 36 Mr. Nguyen: Thank you for your comments. Our next speaker is Rohin. 37 38 Mr. Rohin G: Hi Planning Commission. My name is Rohin. I am a student at Palo Alto High 39 School and I think I would like to speak today about my belief in our City’s extreme need for 40 Page 53 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. more housing in general. And I think that all of these alternatives do fall short and of them, 1 Alternative Three is the one that’s get closest to being an actual reasonable bare minimum. We 2 need to build as many new homes as possible here and build them dense and make sure that 3 that is how we get those Impact Fees that pay for affordable housing. 4 5 I’ve seen far too many teachers have to move out because there isn’t enough housing at a 6 reasonable price around here. I’ve seen friends have to move out, I’ve… and I think myself and 7 most of my peers understand that we likely will not be able to afford to live here when we are 8 adults in the community we have grown up in. 9 10 That combined with the fact that most housing in North Ventura means more foot traffic for 11 small businesses on Cal Ave which we all know that those small businesses need foot traffic to 12 be able to come out of the economic crisis that we’re in and recover. So, with that, I would just 13 argue that Alternative Three is the one that should be considered the bare minimum here and 14 should be what we base our planning process off of. 15 16 Further than that someone earlier pointed out that a good open space idea is rewilding the 17 creek corridor and I would like to say that I think that is a great idea. Thank you and I yield my 18 time. 19 20 Mr. Nguyen: Thank you for your comments and our last speaker tonight is Anita. 21 22 Ms. Anita Lusebrink: Hi. I’m Anita Lusebrink and my family owns a house in Palo Alto. I grew up 23 since junior high school here so I do have some history here. Just a few questions and thoughts 24 to throw into the hopper. There’s a lot going on and so this is just more stuff to think about. 25 First of all, affordable housing seems to be the highest priority for the citizens that have been 26 speaking up so I think that’s really important to take into consideration as the governmental 27 body that responds to the citizens of Palo Alto. And the… we could… you know if you’re 28 concerned about finances, the government is not only a money-making proposition. It is for the 29 citizens again so I think we could combine a private, public, and non-profit coalitions to make 30 these ideas happen to benefit more of a range of people. I know I work personally since I have a 31 niece with a developmental disability which who I’d love to have live much closer to us. She is 32 helped by Palo Alto Housing Developers, Housing Choices Coalition, EAH Housing. They all 33 would love to develop more affordable… not only affordable, but BMR housing because 34 obviously affordable in Palo Alto is way above the norm of most people probably in this state 35 and BMR is probably still above many people in the state. 36 37 Two, development really has to focus along El Camino Real, and maybe the other option would 38 be 101 and this has to be high density. You know I think suburbia along the peninsula is really 39 kind of no longer viable. The two-car garage, the personal lawn, all that’s got to be really be 40 Page 54 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. rethought because it’s just not current. And higher housing, I like the idea of the tiered higher 1 housing so the top couple-few floors could be very market-rate. You know, what do you call 2 that? Penthouse housing and the bottom floors could be BMR and I think it should be graded 3 from El Camino and Oregon down to the smaller houses that are existing on this site. And again, 4 we have to really look at how the COVID situation has made housing into offices. We don’t 5 need to build more office space. There’s still a lot of office space being built but people are 6 working from home now and they’re walking and riding bikes and enjoying fresh air in public 7 spaces which would be the parks. So, I hope all these ideas maybe could be considered in your 8 continuing look into what we need to do there. Thank you so much. 9 10 Mr. Nguyen: Thank you for your comments. Chair Templeton, that concludes public comments 11 for this item. 12 13 Chair Templeton: Thank you so much. Ok, I’m glad we were able to get to so many public 14 commenters tonight and so many members of the North Ventura Coordinated Area Plan 15 Working Group. I guess I should start by saying thank you to all of the people that have put 16 effort into getting this project this far. It’s really exciting to see where it’s gone. 17 18 We are planning to continue this to January 13th I believe it is. To the first meeting in January 19 and we can have a more in-depth discussion. What I’m hoping to get from the Commissioners 20 tonight and I hope to be helpful to Ms. Tanner in preparing for the January meeting is just some 21 areas where you might want to see more feedback, or if you have specific questions. And then 22 that way Staff can have an opportunity to look in those and bring it back. For the members of 23 the public who want to speak up who did not get a chance to this evening. We will reopen 24 public comment at that time. We expect that Staff will also be preparing additional materials 25 for us as well. 26 27 So, with that said, Commissioners let’s try… we’re a little bit over time of what we planned for 28 tonight and some people may have conflicts. Let’s try and keep it brief and we’ll do one round 29 with everybody. And then anything else you’re welcome to send comments to the 30 Commissioner email alias or directly to Ms. Tanner if you were not able to get them tonight. So, 31 I see some hands raised. Commissioner Hechtman. 32 33 Commissioner Hechtman: Alright thank you. I’m going to actually just ask a procedural 34 question. I’m not really understanding why we’re starting Commission deliberation in the 35 middle of public comment. I think that’s unusual. 36 37 Chair Templeton: They’re going to… well you’re right. It… technically if we want to continue 38 versus give her feedback and then they can bring it back. It’s a matter of whether it’s 39 continuance or a separate meeting. Is that your question? 40 Page 55 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Hechtman: No, my… the question… I mean I’m ready to provide some 2 substantive comments, but I’m hesitant to do that before the conclusion, the real conclusion, of 3 the public comment which is going to be some time on the 13th. 4 5 Chair Templeton: You are not required to have any substantive comments tonight. If you want 6 to wait till public comment complete. The reason we’re not… I want to allow people to speak 7 because the way that the agenda was written may it ambiguous over whether all public 8 comment would be closed tonight. It literally says we’re going to continue this until January 9 13th. 10 11 Commissioner Hechtman: Right and I have no problem with more public comment on January 12 13th. My question is, is why are… other than asking questions. I understand if people have 13 questions they want to ask of Staff so that Staff is ready to respond on January 13th. That’s fine 14 but when I read our Staff report it seems like what it says is take the Staff report, take the 15 public hearing and continue to January 13th. Now, I haven’t read the notice that went out to the 16 public but that’s what our Staff report suggests. 17 18 Chair Templeton: You are welcome to make a motion to continue now if you wish. A few 19 Commissioners have (interrupted) 20 21 Commissioner Riggs: I will second that motion to be candid. I feel like that’s (interrupted) 22 23 Chair Templeton: Please, don’t interrupt Commissioner Riggs. Please wait till I’m finished. 24 25 Commissioner Riggs: Sorry. 26 27 Chair Templeton: So, a few Commissioners have indicated that they wanted to ask a couple 28 more questions and we did talk about it earlier. I think it’s courteous to offer that opportunity, 29 but like you said if you want to have this substantive discussion in January that’s fine too. So, 30 we can put it to a vote. I encourage Commissioners to speak up one way or the other about if 31 they want to have additional comments tonight. So, do you want to make a motion? 32 33 Commissioner Hechtman: No, no, I want to… I think I’ve… everyone knows how I’m feeling 34 about this so I’m interested and I don’t want to cut off anybody that does have a question that 35 they want to tee up for Staff so Staff is ready later. Thank you. 36 37 Chair Templeton: I will just add I also am holding my substantive comments until January, but I 38 did have a couple of things that I thought would be helpful for Staff to bring forward. Ok, we’ve 39 got a tone of hands up. Vice-Chair Roohparvar. 40 Page 56 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Great, I had a question. That was exactly my intent. So, Staff when you 2 come back in January I know that we just got the application for SB330 was recent. Can you 3 please explain the impact that that SB330 application has on our deliberations regarding 4 NVCAP? You said in your report that it was significant and I continue to read but I couldn’t really 5 tease it out. So, when we come back in January could you provide greater guidance on what 6 that (interrupted) 7 8 Ms. Tanner: Yes. 9 10 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: The impact. It’s the practical impact it’s going to have if that goes 11 through and legally and it’s not a conversation for tonight and I don’t anticipate you guys are 12 ready for that right now. 13 14 Ms. Tanner: We can provide that and what we can provide both just explanation of SB330 itself. 15 You know, how it works, what it is in this [unintelligible – audio cut out] clear but then also just 16 maybe numerically and qualitatively. Essentially if that parcel is 85 units and the remainder is 17 office which is about 140,000-square feet. How does that change some of the tables that we 18 showed and what would (interrupted) 19 20 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Exactly. 21 22 Ms. Tanner: What would [unintelligible] resulting development look like in the other parcels? 23 24 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Exactly. That’s what I wanted to know. Thank you. 25 26 Chair Templeton: Thank you, Vice-Chair Roohparvar. Commissioner Summa. 27 28 Commissioner Summa: Thank you, Chair Templeton. You know I hadn’t thought about it before, 29 but I do think Commissioner Hechtman makes a good point. That we might want to and I don’t 30 think it’s Staff’s… Staff can answer this. I don’t think Staff’s… it was their intention to change 31 anything between own obviously since it’s a continued meeting and the 13th. So, it is really on 32 the 13th that the conclusion of the public hearing that we should be… we will be most informed 33 to make out comments I think. So, that does… I see the sense of that. I just wanted to share. 34 35 Chair Templeton: Alright, I appreciate that and I sense we’re going to have a motion here 36 shortly. Commissioner Riggs, do you have additional comments? 37 38 Commissioner Riggs: I don’t… I had a question that can be answered at the next meeting. I’m 39 curious if the, and this is maybe a… I’m not sure this may be a sub-consultant question if the 40 Page 57 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. geometry of the parcels being dictated for at Ash and Lambert. If that’s really an efficient 1 geometry given the adjacency to the street? So, I’d just like to understand whether or not that 2 geometry actually works with a physical building. Clearly, it’s just a land-use designation but I 3 think putting some practical… yep. So, I’d like to understand it actually is functional geometry. 4 5 Ms. Tanner: Is that the north or south of Lambert? 6 7 Commissioner Riggs: Sorry, southwest Ash and well, I mean I think you could look at that 8 whole… I mean I’d like to understand the analysis of all those parcels around the park and the 9 geometry with which they… is its functional geometry to actually build something? 10 11 Ms. Tanner: We can definitely talk about that. 12 13 Chair Templeton: Great, thank you, Commissioner Riggs. Commissioner Alcheck. 14 15 Commissioner Alcheck: Yeah, I will… I respect the decision and the idea here of not commenting 16 on the alternatives or the NVCAP item presented to us until our following meeting. But since we 17 still have 28 attendees in the room and several of them are members of the NVCAP, potentially 18 leaders of the NVCAP Working Group, I think I’d be remiss if I didn’t sort of share just one 19 comment. 20 21 You know Palo Alto is unique. This Working Group is an absolutely unique effort and I think we 22 heard a lot of consistency in a lot of the comments tonight. I would encourage the members of 23 the Working Group not to wait until January to consider reaching out to this property owner 24 who has submitted an application if… I don’t want to be an alarmist, but if the single property 25 owner that has 20 percent of the land builds 85 units on 12-acres. I think every alternative is in 26 jeopardy. I don’t believe that the visions and the ideas that were discussed tonight appeal to 27 people will be realized if the single most developable piece of property in this area goes 28 forward without even participating in this process. And so, while I think the NVCAP Working 29 Group has achieved some allottable results, I am very, very concerned that this will not be a 30 productive process if we don’t figure out a way to get everyone to maybe put the brakes on 31 their plans and see if we create by in. And I’m really worried about and I look forward to having 32 a conversation about which alternatives speak loudly towards the goals of the City. And I think 33 we could have a very vigorous discussion, but if in 6-months’ time under SB330 the largest 34 property owner moves forward with 85 units. I think that the many of the… I don’t think the 35 vision statement can be realized and I don’t think it’s safe to wait one month. I think your 36 timeframe… the clock is ticking under SB330 here for this application and I don’t necessarily 37 think that the responsibility to begin that discussion should be exclusively in the Planning 38 Departments' hands. This was an NVCAP Working Group. Maybe you guys can figure out how to 39 fix this, but I’m a little worried about that and I don’t know how to address it. I don’t know who 40 Page 58 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. to email because I don’t have a relationship with anyone involved in this and so but it is… I am a 1 little concerned. I think this is our one… this is one of the most… this is one of the sites with the 2 greatest potential for addressing an issue that clearly speaks to many people and I’m really 3 concerned that the ship is sort of sailing without us so that’s all I have to say tonight. 4 5 Chair Templeton: Thank you so much, Commissioner Alcheck. I’ll go next and then I would ask if 6 Commissioner Hechtman could wait after Commissioner Lauing before making his comments 7 because Commissioner Lauing hasn’t gone yet. 8 9 So, my comments really… I guess I’m echoing something that a member of the public said and 10 that something Commissioner Riggs mentioned which is understanding the dynamics at El 11 Camino and Page Mill. And why the cut-throughs were happening and are there proposals that 12 we can drive either through this NVCAP process or externally with transportation to improve 13 that intersection? I think that the lack of a right turn lane is causing a lot of problems there and 14 I thought that for many years. I think that that has to be solved before any kind of development 15 in that part of the North Ventura area could happen. So, I would love to hear any… even a brief 16 update from the transportation team about what that would involve and if can be tied or if it 17 should be done separate? That type of thing. 18 19 Alternative Three, I think Commissioner Lauing brought this up earlier. Why did we have to 20 quadruple the office space in order to add a couple 100 more homes? What could we do 21 instead to get more housing? Is there a housing heavier version of that plan? You know, I mean 22 just going into a bit more detail about why is… why did it come to us looking like that and what 23 could we flex there? 24 25 Somebody from the public also brought up contamination on this property and would it be 26 suitable for development? I assume it would or we wouldn’t have gotten this far, but I would 27 love to hear a brief comment from Staff about that next time as well. 28 29 And then clarification about the R2 versus the R1 on Olive and whether that does complicate 30 the number of homes that could be built. I think it would be great to explore that a little more 31 in detail. 32 33 So anyway, thank you for all that you’ve done. I know that it’s a huge project you’ve worked on 34 for years so congratulations on getting this far. It is a huge milestone worth celebrating so 35 thank you all. Alright, we’ll go next to Commissioner Lauing followed by Commissioner 36 Hechtman. 37 38 Commissioner Lauing: Yep, thanks. I want to make a couple comments particularly because we 39 had most of the public comment tonight, but my concern still is that the… after this many years 40 Page 59 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. and all that work that we’re not really addressing a couple of the primary objectives that were 1 set forth for the Working Group by the City Council and I point particularly to .1 and .5 in the 2 NVCAP Goals. Add to the City’s supply of multi-family housing including market-rate, affordable, 3 missing middle, senior housing, walkable, open space. It’s very specific and a number of the 4 members of the public tonight talked about the fact that we could get… we could squeeze more 5 housing in there. The objective of the study was not to see how many houses we could get in 6 there. It’s not a housing project. We want housing in there, in a neighborhood that’s basically 7 reimagined and rebuilt. And what’s drastically missing here with the current proposals is that 8 we have 15 percent BMR at some number that doesn’t address Objective Number One as a 9 number of members of the public have said and we’re only going to get whatever that other 10 number was. Of the 500 units of where ever that thing is right… here we go. Of the… the BMR is 11 down to like 180 units on Alternative Two. That doesn’t match with that objective because we 12 want all of the segments of below-market-rate. It doesn’t match with the RHNA that everyone’s 13 concerned about appropriately. We need a lot more of true affordable housing and just 14 building more housing does not mean you’re going to get lower-cost housing. Unless it's deed-15 restricted, you’re going to get market-rate housing. That’s a really important concept that I 16 don’t think that a lot of folks are getting their arms around. We can’t just put up a number of 17 houses and therefore rents are going to go down. Demand is almost insatiable for apartments 18 and homes in Palo Alto by people who want to live here for all the right reasons. So, it’s not just 19 a quantity of more housing and apart from that, the assignment here is not to build housing 20 with 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 units on this spot. It’s to reimagine the neighborhood so the concepts 21 that are missing are primarily that we need more segments and there has to be this walkable, 22 livable, open space park area. That definitely applies to diversity in that neighborhood and it 23 applies to diversity in our City with the number of folks that we want to bring here who need 24 more affordable housing that is sort of dictated in that regard. 25 26 So, relative to before next week, I don’t think the consultant can go back and do anything. The 27 conclusion that… where was it?... the conclusion on Page 22 that the feasibility of office space… 28 let me get that here. The report identifies office uses as the most financially feasible use in the 29 NVCAP area. We knew that before that started because we’re using the old model of we have 30 to get offices to pay for all the amenities in the area. Alternative M and others of us have been 31 discussing over the last few months that we can’t use that old model anymore. So, that’s not 32 pointing fingers at the consultant or at Staff or anything. It’s just that we have to get outside 33 the box. We have to start looking at partnerships with other companies. Facebook announced 34 today, today, $150 million that they want to put into affordable housing in the hood here. 35 Google has done it to a billion etc. etc. etc. I won’t go into it. That was even covered in the same 36 article. So, doing those kinds of partnerships is one way to do it and it’s incumbent upon us and 37 I say us starting with Council to find different ways to finance these things because we have to 38 do it right. And just adding more and more and more office, which obviously takes up more 39 Page 60 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. space that could be used for parks, it just isn’t going to work. So, I’m not pointing fingers at 1 anybody. I’m just saying that we have to get a lot more creative about how we do this. 2 3 And then the other kind of minor point related to that is that understanding the sensitivity 4 analysis of what was described as feasible or not feasible. What else would be helpful because 5 it might be the matter of a million dollars a project which is a tiny, tiny number in the scheme of 6 getting these things up. So, I had more comments but that’s what I wanted to comment on 7 today in the context of the public comment. 8 9 Chair Templeton: I appreciate that, Commissioner Lauing. I see Commissioner Summa has also 10 raised her hand. Do you want to go now Commissioner Hechtman or would you like to go after 11 Commissioner Summa? 12 13 Commissioner Hechtman: Oh actually, I just have a question so I can go now. 14 15 Chair Templeton: Ok, go ahead. 16 17 Commissioner Hechtman: I’m not… I didn’t raise my hand to make a motion. 18 19 Chair Templeton: Left it open because I wasn’t sure. 20 21 Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah, no, a question. So in the Staff report at Packet Page 24, one of 22 the issues that Staff has asked for our input on regards the six parcels identified as opportunity 23 sites that have current zoning of General Manufacturing, GM and Staff poses the question to 24 us. We may want to consider whether the City should retain such properties for R&D light 25 industrial uses and that’s something that we can discuss next time. But… and I want to discuss 26 that but when I look through the Staff Packet I couldn’t actually find any of the maps that 27 identified which parcels those six are. And so, I wanted to ask did I just miss it and if I didn’t, I’d 28 like for Staff to provide that for our next meeting so I know which six parcels, where they’re 29 located so I can engage in that conversation. 30 31 Ms. Tanner: That’s a great question Commissioner. Those are the parcels that are… I’m not 32 sure if you have your printed or your digital Packet with you right but if you look, for example, 33 it’s first highlighted on Alternative Two which is Packet Page 32. And you’ll see at the top of the 34 page it says office/light industrial with rezone option could be redeveloped and rezoned so 35 that… to multi-family residential, MFR. So, those parcels at the northern portion abutting the 36 train tracks are those areas. 37 38 Commissioner Hechtman: Oh, so it’s all six… they’re assembled? 39 40 Page 61 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Ms. Tanner: There is one as well and then Chitra, can you help me? I believe that also there is 1 those four or three little blue parcels that are on Ash Street between Ash and between Olive 2 and Page Mill. If you see those and that has a little bubble that says retain office/industrial 3 designation and some of those parcels I believe also have that same industrial designation as 4 (interrupted) 5 6 Ms. Chitra Moitra, Planner: Yes, you are right. Those are also GM. 7 8 Commissioner Hechtman: So, on Alternative Two it’s three smallish blue bubbles are three of 9 the parcels and then the other three are contained in the wedge between Park and the railroad 10 tracks? 11 12 Ms. Tanner: Yes, that’s correct. 13 14 Ms. Moitra: Yes. 15 16 Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. 17 18 Ms. Tanner: Yep, great question. 19 20 Chair Templeton: Alright, one we could answer today. I appreciate that. Commissioner Summa. 21 22 Commissioner Summa: Thank you. Just a couple things at a high level since we’re not… we’re 23 saving most of this discussion for January, but actually, along Park Boulevard the General 24 Manufacturing use has eroded over time. And I think there’s only one left and really what they 25 are, are offices and there’s two big residential buildings. One in the NVCAP, the kind of 26 Mondrian blue, yellow and red building which is commercial on the bottom and then a large 27 residential building above. It was always my intention to continue that use which is preferred 28 over what have become general office for all of those GM Zones. So that was… that kind of 29 might… maybe might help a little bit. 30 31 And then I want to say I don’t think I missed any of the NVCAP meetings and I… its been a long 32 process but I think that Commissioner Lauing is correct when he said that we didn’t get to the 33 knot of what we were trying to do here. And I would like to suggest also that we need to look 34 at… like math and financial feasibility is not really my biggest thing. Equity and treating people 35 right and zoning is something that I understand more, but I would suggest that we already have 36 evidence that we don’t need to have office to get housing. And I think what evidence of that is 37 the VTA project on the corner of Page Mill and El Camino which is an all housing basically 38 project and also the new one that Council just approved on San Antonio. Those are actually 39 evidence of housing creating, penciling out for even more housing, and I think we need to look 40 Page 62 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. at those. And I think we also need to be considering… and I’m not sure why… this was always a 1 missing part of the NVCAP discussion for me. I think we need to be considering our multi-family 2 zones. Now currently the one we have is… the largest is RM40 which is 40 units per acre and I 3 think we need a higher density per acre zone. And we need to figure out where we want to put 4 it, but we also need to consider the development standards that would go along with it. So, we 5 are creating places where people really will thrive and enjoy living, even if they’re denser, but 6 still have the things people need to create also… to improve, restore and create a lovely 7 residential area. 8 9 And I do think one of the Working Group members also mentioned trees and I think that should 10 definitely be apart of this. That area is… has a porosity of street tree (interrupted) 11 12 Chair Templeton: Thank you. 13 14 Commissioner Summa: So, I just wanted to get some of those ideas out. 15 16 Chair Templeton: Yeah and I think it will be interesting to dig into some of these ideas in more 17 detail after we close the public comment, but thank you for previewing your thoughts, 18 everybody. 19 20 Alright, I think at this point I am interested in a motion to continue. Vice-Chair Roohparvar. 21 22 MOTION 23 24 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Sure, I’ll make it, but you got to help me out, Chair Templeton. I’m 25 going to move (interrupted) 26 27 Chair Templeton: About moving the Staff motion? 28 29 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Ok, yeah, can I move the Staff motion that for us to continue 30 discussions on this topic too (interrupted) 31 32 Chair Templeton: January 13th. 33 34 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: The next meeting in January and we will keep public comments open. 35 36 Chair Templeton: We’ll reopen public comments then. 37 38 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: We will reopen public comments then. 39 40 Page 63 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Templeton: Perfect. Any second? Just shout out. 1 2 Commissioner Alcheck: I had a quick clarification. Are we going to reopen public comments so 3 to those who haven’t spoken only? 4 5 Chair Templeton: Correct. I (interrupted) 6 7 SECOND 8 9 Commissioner Riggs: Second, second. 10 11 Chair Templeton: Ok. 12 13 Commissioner Riggs: Sorry, I was waiting on Bart to make the motion. 14 15 VOTE 16 17 Chair Templeton: Everybody’s hand’s up still from last time so it’s hard to tell. I saw 18 Commissioner Riggs, you seconded. Commissioner Lauing, I think also wanted to be supportive 19 of this motion, is that right? Ok. So, motion was made by Vice-Chair Roohparvar, seconded by 20 Commissioner Riggs. Any comments? Any more clarifications? Thank you for staying overtime 21 so that we could hear everybody who showed up today. That was really nice of everybody. Ok, 22 Mr. Nguyen, would you please conduct a vote? 23 24 Mr. Nguyen: Yes. Commissioner Alcheck? 25 26 Commissioner Alcheck: Aye. 27 28 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Hechtman? 29 30 Commissioner Hechtman: Aye. 31 32 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Lauing? 33 34 Commissioner Lauing: Yes. 35 36 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Riggs? 37 38 Commissioner Riggs: Aye. 39 40 Page 64 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Mr. Nguyen: Vice-Chair Roohparvar? 1 2 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yes. 3 4 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Summa? 5 6 Commissioner Summa: Yes. 7 8 Mr. Nguyen: Chair Templeton? 9 10 Chair Templeton: Yes. 11 12 Mr. Nguyen: Ok, the motion carries 7-0. 13 14 MOTION PASSED 7(Alcheck, Hechtman, Lauing, Riggs, Roohparvar, Summa, Templeton)-0 15 16 Chair Templeton: Thank you, everybody. 17 18 Commission Action: Motion to continue by Roohparvar, seconded by Riggs. Pass 7-0 19 Approval of Minutes 20 Public Comment is Permitted. Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 21 3. November 4, 2020 Draft PTC Meeting Minutes 22 Chair Templeton: Alright so now we are on to approval of the minutes. We have minutes for 23 the 4th and the 18th. Have they been amended? Mr. Nguyen or Ms. Tanner? Do you… have you 24 received amendments? 25 26 Mr. Vinhloc Nguyen, Admin Associate III: Yes, Commissioner Hechtman did send us some 27 revisions which I have forwarded to the Commission. 28 29 Chair Templeton: Excellent. Commissioner Hechtman, would you like to make a motion 30 regarding the minutes? 31 32 Commissioner Riggs: I have a question before we do that. 33 34 Chair Templeton: Oh, go ahead. Yes? Commissioner Riggs. 35 36 Commissioner Riggs: Mr. Nguyen, did… I believe I had comments on the 4th that were… as well? 37 This was a while back. We did comments on the 4th, is that correct? 38 39 Page 65 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Hechtman: I think your comments might have been on October… the… October 1 28th. 2 3 Commissioner Riggs: Ok, maybe that was it. Ok, alright. 4 5 Commissioner Hechtman: I think at the last meeting which you weren’t able to attend. 6 7 Commissioner Riggs: Yeah, the 18th. 8 9 Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah, we moved those minutes with your changes and mine. 10 11 Commissioner Riggs: Ok can… then can we split up the two sets of minute… the motion on the 12 two sets of minutes, if that’s ok Commissioner Hechtman? 13 14 MOTION 15 16 Commissioner Hechtman: So, I will move adoption of the revised minutes for November 4th. 17 18 Chair Templeton: Any second? 19 20 SECOND 21 22 Commissioner Riggs: Second. 23 24 Chair Templeton: Alright, can you please conduct the vote, Mr. Nguyen? 25 26 Mr. Nguyen: Yes. Commissioner Alcheck? 27 28 Commissioner Alcheck: Aye. 29 30 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Hechtman? 31 32 Commissioner Riggs: He said… 33 34 Chair Templeton: Can you say it louder? I think you’re muted. 35 36 Commissioner Hechtman: Aye. 37 38 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Lauing? 39 40 Page 66 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Lauing: Yes. 1 2 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Riggs? 3 4 Commissioner Riggs: Yes. 5 6 Mr. Nguyen: Vice-Chair Roohparvar? 7 8 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yes. 9 10 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Summa? 11 12 Commissioner Summa: Yes. 13 14 Mr. Nguyen: Chair Templeton? 15 16 Chair Templeton: Yes. 17 18 Mr. Nguyen: Ok the motion carries 7-0. 19 20 MOTION PASSED 7(Alcheck, Hechtman, Lauing, Riggs, Roohparvar, Summa, Templeton)-0 21 22 Chair Templeton: Thank you. 23 24 Commission Action: Motion to approve by Hechtman, seconded by Riggs. Pass 7-0. 25 26 4. November 18, 2020 Draft PTC Meeting Minutes 27 Chair Templeton: Commissioner Hechtman? 28 29 MOTION 30 31 Commissioner Hechtman: I move that we approve the minutes of our November 18th meeting 32 as revised. 33 34 Chair Templeton: Any second? 35 36 SECOND 37 38 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: I’ll second. 39 40 Page 67 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Templeton: Thank you very much. Mr. Nguyen, would you please conduct the vote? 1 2 Mr. Vinhloc Nguyen, Admin Associate III: Commissioner Alcheck? 3 4 Commissioner Alcheck: Aye. 5 6 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Hechtman? 7 8 Commissioner Hechtman: Aye. 9 10 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Lauing? 11 12 Commissioner Lauing: Yes. 13 14 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Riggs? 15 16 Commissioner Riggs: I’ll abstain. 17 18 Mr. Nguyen: Vice-Chair Roohparvar? 19 20 Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yes. 21 22 Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Summa? 23 24 Commissioner Summa: Yes. 25 26 Mr. Nguyen: Chair Templeton? 27 28 Chair Templeton: Yes. 29 30 Mr. Nguyen: Ok the motion carries 6-0-1. 31 32 MOTION PASSED 6(Alcheck, Hechtman, Lauing, Roohparvar, Summa, Templeton) -0 -1(Riggs 33 abstain) 34 35 Chair Templeton: Thank you so much, everyone. 36 37 Commission Action: Motion to approve by Hechtman, seconded by Roohparvar. Pass 6-0-1 38 (Riggs abstain) 39 Page 68 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Committee Items 1 Chair Templeton: Next is Committee items so any updates other than what we covered all 2 evening? Ok. Thank you, Commissioner Summa, I see her shaking her head no. Also, we are 3 working on… the XCAP we’re working on our report and iterating on chapter drafts there so 4 you’re welcome to read it… those if you are interested. Anything else? I see no hands raised. 5 Commissioner Questions, Comments or Announcements 6 Chair Templeton: Commissioner questions, comments, announcements or future agenda 7 items? I’ll start here by just pointing out that a tentative schedule has been included on Packet 8 Page 7 for 2020-21 dates. I ask you to please take a look at those dates and see if there are any 9 that are considering with holidays or other outages that we should make the Commission 10 aware of before we kind of limit to the schedule for Staff. You don’t have to do that today. You 11 can bring those back next year. Alright, anything else? Commissioner Hechtman. 12 13 Commissioner Hechtman: So, with this meeting, I’m completing my first year on the 14 Commission and I just wanted to state publicly what a tremendous experience this year has 15 been for me. We have a phenomenal Staff that I didn’t have experience with before this year. 16 This is a great group of Commissioners, very diverse and I learn a lot from each of you all the 17 time. And I particularly want to call out Commissioner Lauing and Summa. I know that there’s a 18 reappointment about to happen. I sincerely hope that you’re both reappointed because I think 19 you both add immeasurably to our dialog in part because you don’t think the way I think and 20 that really helps me think through issues more fully. So, I just wanted to thank you all for a 21 great experience. 22 23 Chair Templeton: Awe, that’s wonderful. On that note, I should say happy holidays and happy 24 new year and I look forward to seeing everybody on the other side. Time seems to sort of have 25 no meaning under Shelter in Place, but I am grateful that we were able to continue our work for 26 the City during this very unusual year. So, and thank you, I’m glad you had a good first-year 27 Commissioner Hechtman. Ok, I see Commissioner Summa has raised her hand. 28 29 Commissioner Summa: Whoops. Just wanted to thank Commissioner Hechtman for the kind 30 words and to thank everybody else and to wish everybody a safe holiday. It’s a scary time right 31 now so hopefully, it’s nowhere but uphill from now on. 32 33 Chair Templeton: The vaccines are coming out starting this month. It’s an exciting inflection 34 point I think, but we got to get through until there’s enough so everybody do please be safe. 35 Ms. Tanner. 36 37 Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: I just wanted to know Chair if you wanted to mention 38 the year and review that you… letter you plan to prepare for the Council. It’s incoming. We may 39 Page 69 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. circulate that in advance and of course not violate the Brown Act by replying to all for folks to 1 review and comment on in January. 2 3 Chair Templeton: Thank you for reminding me of that. I remember last time that we had a 4 wonderful wrap-up letter that Chair Riggs at the time put together for us and that there was a 5 sentiment of getting more feedback and input on that. We did not agendize it for tonight 6 because we were a little time constrained but I did ask Ms. Tanner if we could find another way 7 to collect your input. So, you can email me directly if there’s something that you’d like to 8 highlight. I will also, in advance of our next meeting, send a draft out in enough time for you to 9 provide feedback on that draft as well so you could either way. You could send me something in 10 the next couple of weeks that you’d like to see included and you could also alternatively 11 provide comment or feedback on the draft before we come to our meeting. And so, then we’ll 12 approve that together and send it to the new Council. Does that sound good? Alright, thank you 13 so much. On that note… did I get everything? I think I did. The meeting is adjourned. 14 Adjournment 15 9:26 pm 16